


Light in the Dark

by ghostwulf



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Romance, Ben Solo Lives, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Did I get everything?, F/M, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Jedi Ben Solo, Kylo Ren Redemption, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Protective Rey (Star Wars), Sith Rey (Star Wars), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, and a day off, probably not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28077273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwulf/pseuds/ghostwulf
Summary: Rey killed the Emperor to save Ben. But can Ben save her from the dark?
Relationships: Finn & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron & Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 32
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved Star Wars all my life, but I've been a little hesitant to write anything for it because, honestly, the fandom kind of scares me: I feel like you guys know so much and I know nothing. So please go easy on me. I just wanted to write some Reylo, and I had so much fun. I hope you like it, too.

Rey stared into the sightless eyes of the Emperor, and she remembered:

Her first scavenge on Jakku, the blistering heat and the looming metal of a crashed TIE fighter, every edge sharp and unfamiliar, and when she dragged her sled through the bogging sand back to Unkar, he sneered at the painstakingly gathered scraps and declared them unworthy of ration payments.

“Only you,” said the Emperor, through strained and wrinkled lips, aged beyond a natural life. “Only you have the power to save them.”

Far above, she heard the explosions. Through the whisper of the Force, she heard the screams.

The Emperor held the rations she needed, the power to stop the violence. But the parts he wanted scavenged from her soul could never be replaced: her compassion, her conviction, her light.

She couldn’t do nothing. If she turned away, Finn would die. The Resistance would die.

If she killed the Emperor, she would fall in the dark.

And she had no idea how far the darkness reached.

“Reign,” said the Emperor.

“Rise,” said the Emperor.

She swallowed hard. Her fingers trembled.

_"Rey."_

She heard the whisper of Luke, of Leia. Mentors, friends, sacrificing to teach her the path of light, and she was about to turn her back on all of it.

Her eyes burned.

She saw Unkar in his stall, offering just enough to survive. Her hands bore the scars of a hundred scavenge trips. The price had always been blood.

If it was her own survival, she would refuse.

But it was theirs.

And she couldn’t.

So Rey nodded.

The Emperor’s slack-jawed grin flashed in the light. He raised bony and rotting hands, shouting to his disciples that the Sith were reborn. The chorus of a thousand voices thundered back as lightning split the sky.

Luke’s saber was cold to the touch, even as the blade ignited. But Rey grasped it with numb fingers, and she stepped forward. The Emperor leered with triumph.

“Give yourself to the dark!” he cried.

For a futile instant, Rey hoped she could swing dispassionately, that she could somehow cut down the monster before her not in anger but in calm, in necessity. To save, not to avenge.

But her arm would not raise to the command, and even in thinking of him as a monster, she knew the truth: When her blade seared his flesh, it would be satisfying. She would think of her parents, dead at his command, and the same repulsive triumph on his face would echo in her soul. She _hated_ him, no matter how she wanted not to.

And maybe this was her truth. Maybe this was who she had always been. A Palpatine.

She stood at the edge of the dark. All that was left was to fall.

She raised her lightsaber. The blade thrummed in the foggy air.

“The moment has come!” the Emperor screamed, cloudy eyes raised to the heavens, grin so wide it cracked his rotting cheeks. “The Jedi are dead!”

Rey’s eyes burned.

_Ben._

It was instinct—to reach for him.

But in that instant, he was there. The chants of the Sith loyalists fell away and all was calm silence. Their silence.

Ben’s gaze held hers, and he smiled. A soft expression never known to Kylo Ren. His brown eyes were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Because in them, she saw the light.

She felt his need through the Force, and it was instinct to respond, to offer him the saber in her hand so he could fight. He was fighting for her, barely a moment away. Coming to rescue—

No.

 _No,_ she realized. Ben had just barely found his way back to the light. If he came to her aid, he would kill the Emperor, or the Emperor would kill him.

She thought of Kylo Ren, with his empty eyes and cold expression.

She thought of the lightning that had almost killed Chewie, turned on Ben Solo. And in that moment, she saw it, sharp as fractured glass. Ben writhing on the ground. The Emperor cackling above. She would try to save him, and she would fail. The air vibrated with his future screams.

No.

Rey grounded herself in the moment. She felt the air in her lungs, sharp as the vision she would prevent.

And with all her current hope, all her happiness, she smiled. She packaged up every bit of light within her and sent it to Ben along with the weapon in her hand. She held his gaze, and she treasured the warmth of his fingers as they brushed hers, transferring the lightsaber to his grasp.

The Jedi were not dead. And she would keep it that way.

Though she had to cut out her own heart to do it.

The sound came rushing back, the connection to Ben severed like the snap of a thread. Rey had given him one weapon, but she had come armed with two, and Leia’s saber was already hot in her other hand.

“DO IT!” the Emperor commanded. “Make the sacrifice!”

He hung like a ratty doll, suspended by wires and cranes, kept alive by tubes and an insidious grip on the Force. He extended his own life while ordering the deaths of innocents across the galaxy.

Rey’s smile vanished, a fire surging in her blood. The dark rushed in to embrace her.

And she let it.

She plunged her saber forward, through the hiss of cloth and flesh, through the shriek of pain, through as far as she could go, until her hand hit the Emperor’s chest.

She could deactivate the blade. She could withdraw.

But she saw her mother screaming under the strike of a dagger, coughing blood. She saw Resistance X-Wings blasted carelessly apart by the Emperor’s fleet. She saw Ben writhing beneath Palpatine lightning.

Rey twisted her wrist, turned her body, and dragged the saber. Slowly. The air hissed and sizzled. The Emperor screamed, and his screams erased the others from her mind, rose in a symphony that she felt to her bones.

“You’ll never hurt another person,” she snarled.

His scream rose in pitch, melted into a screeching laughter that raised goosebumps on her skin.

 _“HATRED!”_ he shrieked.

With a final wrench, Rey ripped her lightsaber through his chest. The metal arm holding him aloft popped and sparked from severed wires. The Emperor’s body sagged at a dangerous angle, but even with his death rattle, he smiled.

Rey shivered. The fire that had risen within extinguished, leaving a cold emptiness in its wake.

And once more, she looked up to meet Ben Solo’s eyes. No Force connection this time, nothing to distance her from the anguish and horror on his face, live and in color and mere feet away.

Lightning flashed. The Sith loyalists surged to their feet, shaking the cavern with a unified roar.

So Rey couldn’t hear Ben’s whisper.

But she felt it all the same:

_What have you done?_

“Call off the fleet.” Her voice was hoarse, directed uselessly at a now-true corpse. She whirled to face one of the red-robed disciples that comprised the Emperor’s personal guard. “Call off the fleet!”

Her voice could barely be heard as the roar of the crowd faded, but the Red Guard dropped to their knees, heads bowed in reverence. As ringing silence fell, the answer came:

“As you command, Empress Palpatine.”

“Do it now!” she shouted. Her stomach pulled against her spine, recoiling from the term of address. But her friends came first; otherwise this was all for nothing.

She couldn’t bring herself to look at Ben.

The Red Guard gave the order, and the TIE fighters retreated, the Star Destroyers silenced their cannons.

Rey’s lightsaber still burned in her hand. Though there was no blood on its surface, she could see it all the same. She extinguished the blade, and the cold sank to her bones.

“Rey.”

Ben stepped toward her, his own lightsaber in hand. Even with the blade retracted, she tensed.

Whatever he might have said was lost in a sudden barrage of explosions. They both whirled to see a new storm of ships overhead. Resistance. A Star Destroyer slanted through the air, trailing flame. The whole cavern shuddered.

“You will not return fire,” Rey ordered.

She was ready for protest, but the Red Guard only nodded.

And that was so much worse.

The Resistance cut through the Emperor’s fleet without hesitation, and as Rey watched the fire in the sky, she tried to banish the memory of how she’d done the same to its leader.

Something cold whispered just behind her ear.

She whirled; the Emperor’s corpse hung limp and sagging, his expression frozen in that death leer.

The cavern rumbled again. One of the Star Destroyers collided with the planet’s surface, and the ceiling cracked. Massive chunks of stone broke free, crashing into the stands of Sith loyalists.

“It isn’t safe!” Ben shouted. He suddenly stood next to her, gripped her cold hand in his warm one.

She let him drag her from the Sith temple as it rumbled and collapsed. The Red Guard did nothing to stop or join them, and she didn’t care. Let it all be buried. Maybe she could imagine it was just a dream.

But a cold whisper just out of hearing told her nothing here could be forgotten, and nothing could ever be the same.


	2. Chapter Two

Ben should have known; he should have sensed something.

But he hadn’t. He’d been so relieved to see her unhurt, to see her smile blossom and to know she’d spend such an expression on _him,_ after everything.

So he hadn’t sensed the dark just around the corner.

“Resistance headquarters are on Ajan Kloss,” Rey said, pulling from his grasp as they reached their respective ships. “I’ll tell them a TIE fighter’s coming in.”

Ben swallowed. “I can’t go to the Resistance.”

“Well you can’t go back to the First Order.”

She was trying to act normal, but Ben saw the tension along her jawline, along her shoulders. The planet was falling apart around them, the ground trembling beneath their feet, and yet . . .

“I was moments away,” he said quietly. “Why—”

“Sorry I didn’t save you a piece,” she snapped. “I know murder’s usually _your_ thing, but I was short on time.”

She’d always been feisty, but there was something darker in the words, something meant to cut. It was the way he used to speak to her as Kylo, when he raised the subject of her parents just hoping to see her bleed. Hoping she would strike back. Because if she did, it would mean she wasn’t so good after all and maybe he wasn’t so bad.

Being on the other side of that felt worse than he’d imagined.

“I’m sorry you were alone,” he said.

He’d come as fast as he could.

Not fast enough.

She looked away. “People were dying, Ben. I did what I had to.”

The ground rumbled once more; now was not the time or place for discussions.

“Come to Ajan Kloss,” she said. It sounded more order than invitation until she grasped his hand, until her expression softened and she added, “Please, Ben.”

A shiver spread up his arm at her touch, and another in his heart for the way she said his name—the way his parents had always said it, like it meant so much more than a name.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” she said, so sure.

Ben wasn’t convinced she would have a choice in the matter, but all the same—

—he couldn’t leave her.

With a nod, he agreed to what might well be his death sentence. Then she climbed into his uncle’s X-Wing, and Ben fired up his commandeered TIE fighter.

“Force be with us,” he muttered. And as he switched on controls and took to the air, he tried to leave behind the image of the sagging, dead Emperor and Rey panting in triumph, her eyes flickering yellow in the cold light.

But it would not be banished.

+++

When Rey sent the message that she was coming in with a TIE fighter, no one questioned it. They were likely too busy celebrating to care for details, and that suited her fine; let them focus on the destruction of the Final Order. Maybe no one would even care about the Emperor.

But when she thought of her friends down on the moon’s surface, cheering and crying with relief, celebrating life and light, she almost went back into lightspeed, almost made a second run to Ahch-To.

“Center your thoughts,” said a quiet voice. For a moment, she thought it came through the Force (it was something both Luke and Leia had repeated to her throughout her training), until she recognized Ben’s voice in her headset.

“I’m fine,” she responded, then winced. If he’d already sensed her unease, the lie was pointless.

And how could he sense anything from her while she felt nothing but the cold isolation of space?

“Landing approach.” She kept her voice clipped, ending the conversation. “Follow me.”

The jungle moon spread below her, an ocean of vibrant green dotted with gray and tan space fighters and little running ants of people. She usually felt a surge of joy returning to any green planet, but at the moment, she felt only irritation that the Resistance base was already packed with ships, and the jungle trees blocked what could otherwise be landing space. Barren deserts were never so inconsiderate.

She felt the heat of Jakku, saw Unkar’s leering face.

Then a different leer, hollow and festering.

_The Sith are reborn in her!_

“Rey!” Ben shouted in her comms.

She pulled up just in time, slammed out her landing gear. The jungle brush snapped beneath her fighter’s impact, and the entire X-Wing groaned as it came to a jolting stop.

Rey should have taken a moment to breathe, but she didn’t want to hear what the silence had to say, so she popped open the cockpit immediately and leapt to the ground. The thick growth snagged at her boots; she felt the ridiculous urge to hack it all back with her saber. But something more pressing caught her attention.

 _“REY!”_ Finn bellowed, tromping through the brush toward her, Poe just behind. “Rey, you’re alive!”

She managed a smile as her friend threw his arms around her, almost toppling her where she stood. Poe joined the hug with nearly as much strength, babbling about the Resistance and the fleet. She heard the word “Emperor” and felt the cold settle once more.

With some effort, she managed to choke out: “I killed him.”

“You stopped the whole fleet!” Poe smacked her shoulder, grinning. “Best Resistance fighter. I’ve always said it, haven’t I? _Best.”_

Finn’s expression, however, dimmed. “Rey? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted for a second time. Remembering Ben, she turned to the woods and saw him trekking cautiously through the edge of the trees toward her.

Finn and Poe followed her gaze, and then the cold silence was in more than just her mind.

Ben raised his hands, halting abruptly just as Poe whipped out his blaster.

Rey found herself too weary for words; she held out a hand, and Poe’s blaster leapt to her palm. She tossed it into the brush.

Her friends both stared at her with slack jaws.

Best to keep it simple. “He’s on our side now.”

“You can’t be serious,” Poe wheezed.

Finn eyed Ben before angling closer to her.

“Rey,” he said quietly, “this guy has tried to kill you on every planet. We saw him—”

She cut him off sharply. “It isn’t a discussion, and it isn’t up for a vote. It’s a fact.”

The silence hung heavy, a weight compressing the distant cheers and celebration into the far-off buzz of an insect, an ever-present hum that grated on Rey’s ears. It was like she was standing in the cavern all over again, surrounded by the chants.

A trickle of sweat slid down her spine.

“Rey, this is—” Poe stepped toward her, snapping a branch like the sound of a lightsaber igniting.

It _was_ a lightsaber igniting. Hers. Pointed at him.

Rey felt a shiver through every bone. The weapon nearly slipped from her clammy hand.

“I’m sorry.” She deactivated it, dropped it. It thudded heavily in the dirt. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, I just—I’m just tired.”

Poe nodded slowly, his eyes still wide. But his voice was forgiving. “It’s been a big day.” He drew in a slow breath, then gestured at Ben. “Still, this is the Supreme Leader we’re talking about. I can’t just let him walk into camp without—”

“You can take me prisoner,” came Ben’s voice, sure and steady. He raised his arms higher, slowly, and laced his fingers behind his head. “I offer my surrender, General Dameron.”

Rey scowled at him, but before she could speak, pain sliced through her mind, a sharp stab from her forehead all the way through her skull. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.

And in the dark abyss, she heard the voice of the Emperor. Faint, but as piercing as the ache.

_End the discussion. Show them your power._

Rey felt another trickle of sweat down her back.

Distantly, she heard Poe’s voice. She tried to focus on it, to draw herself back. The Force pulsed around her, instead drawing her attention to the discarded weapon at her feet.

_Show them._

“Rey?” Finn grabbed her shoulder, grounding her instantly.

Poe’s voice filtered in mid-sentence: “—in a normal cell when he can just wave a hand and blast the door off its hinges!”

“Then freeze him in carbonite,” Rey said dryly. “Or take the chance that he’s sincere.”

If Ben wanted to surrender, so be it. He could make his own decisions. Force knew she’d accomplished nothing by begging him in the past.

Even as she had the thought, his brown eyes found hers, still bright, still calming. He’d listened to something, hadn’t he? And despite herself, despite the pain in her head, she almost managed a smile.

Rest. She just needed rest and time to process. Then everything would be fine.

“Do what you want,” she told Poe, “but if you hurt him, you’ll answer to me.”

As she turned, she held out a hand, and the fallen lightsaber leapt to her palm. She tucked it safely in her belt.

“Never mind that I’m general,” she heard Poe mutter. “Just the head general. But, ooh, she’s the Jedi.”

Normally, Rey enjoyed trading harmless barbs with Poe, but she didn’t toss a word over her shoulder. Not with the memory of the Emperor echoing in her mind.

_The Jedi are dead!_

“I’m a Jedi,” she whispered. _I am a Jedi._

Even though she knew a Jedi would have found a better way.

When Luke had faced the Emperor, he’d found a better way.

She shook her head, ordering her mind to silence. She stumbled her way to a sleep couch, and while the excited chatter of the Resistance fighters continued outside, Rey fell into cold, fitful dreams of lightning and lightsabers.

+++

It wasn’t a thrilling situation.

Of course, if Ben remembered that he’d been mortally stabbed with a lightsaber earlier in the day, a prison cell became much more tolerable.

He restrained a sigh and tried to stretch out on the hard, narrow cot, suddenly realizing how much his muscles ached from the non-stop stress of the day. He’d seen the same kind of weary soreness in Rey as she’d stumbled off, and part of him had wanted to sweep aside the two Resistance fighters between them, to catch her arm, to talk about . . . everything. But it wasn’t possible. Not in a place where everyone still saw him—rightly—as an enemy.

So he’d waited, and after some more grumbling and indecision, Poe Dameron had finally sentenced him to a standard holding cell until something permanent could be decided. Ben had surrendered his lightsaber (not truly his at all, and honestly, a reminder of things he wasn’t prepared to deal with yet) and been escorted to a dusty corner of a decrepit base dug into the forest floor. The cell was an old design, with steel bars driven into packed earth. More cell _ar_ than cell. His was one of four small holding units, though the others held no occupants, and after locking the door behind him, the general and his companions turned to leave without a word.

“No guard?” Ben had remarked in surprise. Taking prisoners was an all-too-familiar practice for him, and the thought of leaving one unwatched was ridiculous.

But Poe answered back with a hard voice: “I’ve _felt_ what you can do to someone’s mind, back when you captured me on Jakku. Not in my camp. If your intentions are so genuine, you’ll still be here when I come back. If not, the orders outside these walls are ‘kill on sight.’”

Ben swallowed, suitably chastened.

So he was left to a cell, completely alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts were all too eager to remind him of everything he’d done in his life to deserve a cell. Or worse.

Definitely worse.

He brought his mind back to the present, but there was plenty of pain there as well, and in the solitude, the weight of the day finally hit him. The First Order had been far from a home, but it had been somewhere to belong, somewhere he had a role and a place, where he could walk confidently and know he had a destination.

Now the path was shrouded. Around and above him was his mother’s life’s work, but his mother was gone, and he had no place in what he’d callously sought to tear down.

Perhaps he would be a prisoner forever. Perhaps they would banish him from the planet, cast him back to the First Order or drop him somewhere to fend for himself.

Perhaps they would execute him.

It made little difference. In a galaxy filled to the brim with bustling planets, Ben had no home on any of them. His own doing. Useless to regret. Yet his throat burned all the same.

There was only one connection he still felt.

Ben’s breathing hitched. He closed his eyes, letting the smell of packed earth fade, releasing the awareness of the ache in his muscles. Through the Force, he searched for her.

Rey was asleep, but even seeing her was comforting, as it always was. The pull he felt toward her was stronger than ever, so tangible that he almost believed he could step across space to meet her. He remembered her smile when she’d seen him on Exegol, the feeling of her intense relief rippling to him through the Force. Seeing him had meant something. In the moment, he’d thought it meant . . .

Well, he wasn’t sure now.

But if he truly wanted to be back in the light—and he did, wanted it so much it ached more than his sore body—then he would have to return to its most basic teaching, the one his uncle had drilled into him repeatedly at the fallen temple.

_Patience._

His turn to the light, the Emperor’s demise, it was all still day-of. Only time would tell the consequences.

So he closed his eyes again, and he breathed.


	3. Chapter Three

“How was your night in prison?” Rey asked, bracing her forearm across the cell bars. A smirk tugged at her lips.

“Mostly insect-free,” Ben answered. He remained sitting on his cot even though he wanted to stand, wanted to be closer to her.

He’d slept fitfully, if that. Had he still been a student at Luke’s temple, his uncle would have told him his inner turmoil needed to be meditated on, sorted through, faced. But the last thing Ben wanted to do was look inward.

If he did, he knew he’d see Kylo Ren’s mask still there, waiting to be donned once more.

Rey tapped a fingernail against one of the bars, the sound ringing out quietly. Her voice was nearly as quiet when she spoke again.

“You didn’t have to do this. I could have talked Poe down.”

Ben remembered the sharp glow of her lightsaber across General Dameron’s throat. He decided against reminding her that talking had not seemed to be the inclination.

“How are you feeling?” he asked instead.

“I’m fine,” she lied, just as she had after leaving Exegol.

Ben wanted to believe it, wanted to believe that killing the Emperor had been like killing a stormtrooper—a necessary, sad act of war, but one performed without any personal malice.

“What happened?” she asked.

He blinked.

“After I left you on Kef Bir.”

“Stole my ship and abandoned me, you mean,” he drawled.

And just as he’d hoped, her cheeks pinked.

Ben could resist no longer. He stood and walked to the front wall of the cell, leaning against the bars in a mirror of her position. His face was mere inches from hers, but separated by steel.

“I had a new lease on life,” he said quietly, “and my mother was gone. I had to examine what chances I’d missed forever and how many more I would lose if I continued down my path.”

She nodded, her eyes on his, a thoughtful frown on her face. He wanted to thank her for her part in it but found himself at a loss. Words were never his strong-suit; he was more comfortable speaking through a lightsaber. He did not have the wit of his father or the diplomacy of his mother. But he would have to find his way.

“Let the past die,” Rey said, startling him. Her lips curved in a gentle smile. “The regret’s all over your face, but it shouldn’t be. Today is what matters. And today, you’re not Kylo Ren. You’re Ben Solo, Jedi Knight.”

His stomach gave a small flip. He swallowed.

“Technically never knighted,” he said. Not officially.

 _“Ben.”_ She practically laughed his name. Had there not been bars between them, she might have swatted him.

Maybe she really was fine. He’d never before had the chance to stand with her like this, conversing without agenda. In truth, he hardly knew her; their relationship consisted of brief arguments and even briefer visions, all courtesy of a Force bond he didn’t begin to understand.

“Do you have a favorite color?” he asked, sudden and stupid.

His cheeks flared. Had he possessed a lightsaber to speak through at the moment, he would have gladly fallen on it.

And yet she smiled like the question was natural.

“I like green,” she said. “Leafy green. Life green. What’s yours?”

He’d never contemplated the question until that moment.

“Gold,” he said at last.

“Why?”

“It’s . . . warm.”

“So’s yellow.”

“I don’t like yellow.” He was suddenly discovering an abundance of trivial opinions. No one in the First Order would have dared ask his opinion on colors. Or on anything. No one spoke to him at all if they could help it.

Until Rey.

“Gold is hopeful,” he said with finality.

She gave that easy smile once more. “I like that.”

Her arm shifted across the bars. Her fingers brushed his. Ben’s heart doubled its speed.

Just then, the main prison door slid open with a hiss, and both of them jumped back. Ben had been too focused to notice anyone approaching. Finn and another Resistance fighter entered, blasters already drawn. Though Finn’s eyes widened when he saw Rey, he didn’t comment on her presence, instead turning a cold gaze on Ben.

“We need the location of First Order bases to end this once and for all,” he said, straight to the point. “If you can point us in the right direction, you might earn some trust.”

Rey’s hand dropped to her lightsaber, and her expression hardened.

“I’ll do it,” Ben said before she could speak.

Although Rey stepped back and allowed him to be cuffed for transport across the base, she walked alongside him the entire way. Her familiar presence was comforting—especially since everyone else in the camp watched him pass with murder in their eyes. Chatter died. Hands tightened on blasters. Ben kept his eyes forward and tried not to trip over the vines underfoot.

Eventually, he was brought to a group of leaders (he assumed, since Poe Dameron was in attendance) and presented with a bunch of star charts.

“One condition,” he said.

Poe started an immediate protest: “You don’t get to make—”

“Let him speak,” Rey said.

She and the general traded lightning gazes until he flicked his hand.

“You’ll broadcast a message to any First Order troops,” Ben finished.

“We’re not about to let you send a warning,” Finn said before Poe even could.

“I’ll record it in advance,” Ben said. “Give you my personal code, so the broadcast comes in as official. You just play it before you attack.”

“Fine,” General Dameron said, as if sharing in a joke. He made another gesture. “BB-8, come record this. Let’s hear what the dictator has to say.”

A familiar orange-and-white droid rolled up, beeping brightly. It came to a stop just before Ben’s feet, ready to record.

Ben felt the weight of every gaze. He straightened his shoulders. The binding cuffs on his wrists were clearly visible, and he felt the absence of his mask more than ever.

But he spoke clearly and strongly.

“This is Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.” The name scraped his throat. “I have surrendered to the Resistance, and I suggest every First Order officer and trooper do the same. This war is over.”

As he turned away, the BB-8 unit powered down its recording device.

“That’s it?” one of the leaders said, raising an eyebrow.

Ben tried not to fidget. “Never been one for long-winded orders.”

He set to work marking First Order bases across their star charts. Once he declared he’d finished, the head general ordered he be returned to his cell.

“He doesn’t need a cell,” Rey protested. “Is this how we punish people for doing what’s right? For helping to end a war?”

“A war he previously worked so hard to continue?” Poe shot back. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. He’s lucky I haven’t had him executed for war crimes, but if he’s right about the First Order hideouts _then maybe_ we can talk long term.”

The Force rippled around Rey. It wasn’t dark, but there was something in the undercurrent, like a firaxan shark circling just beneath the surface. On instinct, Ben wanted to reach for her, but his hand barely twitched before the binder cuff knocked against his wrist, reminding him of his situation.

“Then I’m taking the first mission,” Rey said at last. “You choose the base. I’ll lead the team.”

“Finally, a reasonable idea,” said Poe.

He ordered Ben to be taken back to his cell. As the former supreme leader fell into step with his captors, he caught a glimpse of Rey staring after him, her lips compressed, the Force still churning around her.

Part of Ben wished he had given them false information, just so she wouldn’t be sent into battle while conflicted.

So there wasn’t the chance she wouldn’t come back.

+++

After her full night’s rest and early morning conversation with Ben, Rey felt like a new person. Revitalized in mind and muscle.

_Like a corpse back from the—_

The Force hummed around her, and she threw herself into it, not to accomplish any task but simply to feel the intense buzz of life, the tension between every living thing, the _noise_ of the world. She let it drown out anything else that might have been heard, any voices that may have lurked in the silence.

The mission was straightforward. She and her full strike squadron would take the base, claiming any weapons and ships in the process. Anyone who peacefully surrendered would be stripped of weapons and allowed to live. As Poe put it, they were dismantling a tyrannical government, not becoming one themselves.

“Hopefully they surrender after hearing their Supreme Leader’s message,” one commander said.

“We’re lucky to have it,” said another.

Poe gave only a subdued nod, even under Rey’s direct gaze. But at least Ben’s actions were winning over some of the others.

Rey was determined to use this mission to win the rest.

She was able to sneak her team onto the planet’s surface without detection, but they had sensors well before reaching the base, and there was the message to broadcast anyway. It was good they didn’t need the element of surprise since they outnumbered the men at the base. Rey held her breath as she heard Ben’s voice urge his once-followers to surrender.

But no one heeded the call.

“We knew we might have to do this the hard way,” Rey told her leaders. “Get your teams in position.”

She took a deep breath, centering herself in the Force. She would claim this base, whatever it took.

A sharp pain stabbed through her skull. She pressed one hand to her forehead, dizzy.

_Show them your power. Show them you will not lose._

Her comms crackled, and she forced her mind to the moment.

“This is Gold Leader,” came the message. “Requesting permission to strike.”

For a moment, Rey thought of Ben with his stubborn, childlike pout as he claimed gold was the color of hope.

Her lips twitched. The pounding in her head eased.

“Copy, Gold Leader,” she said. “Permission granted. Hit them with everything you’ve got.”

And the battle began.


	4. Chapter Four

As it turned out, repeating the word “patience” a thousand times in his mind did not suddenly bestow said virtue on Ben. If anything, he thought maybe the reminder was making him _less_ patient.

Or maybe that was the lack of anything to do while he tried to be patient.

There was one thing:

He could meditate.

But his soul shrank at the thought. So he paced a cell that was too small to be paced, and he waited.

_Patience, patience, patience._

Eventually, the main door slid open, revealing the outline of a former stormtrooper.

“Rey’s captured the base,” Finn said. “I guess your intel was good after all.”

Ben sagged in relief. Not that he’d expected the base to move or disappear, just that Rey had succeeded. He’d resisted the urge to reach for her in the Force while she was gone. The last thing he wanted was to provide a critical distraction.

He’d expected Finn to leave after delivering his message, but the other man hovered in the doorway. The silence grew more weighted by the second.

“So you go by ‘Finn’ now,” Ben said at last.

“So you go by ‘Ben’ now,” the fighter shot back.

Point taken.

“I guess we’ve both changed.” An empty sentiment considering Kylo Ren had never personally known FN-2187.

“I’d like to believe that,” Finn said. Yet the dead tone spoke otherwise.

Something flickered in Ben’s awareness, the press of an idea on his mind, the briefest flash of an image.

Gray hair. Red lightning. A man falling, and everything falling with him.

Ben’s chest ached.

“You hate me for killing Han Solo.”

Finn stiffened, betraying the truth of it. The ripples in the Force around him were barely visible, like a faint shimmer of summer heat, nothing like the intensity with which Ben could sense the changes around Rey. Still, the fact that he could sense it at all—sense it without even focusing on the former stormtrooper—spoke to the magnitude of his feelings.

Ben had once accused Rey of finding a father in Han Solo; he’d failed to consider the person standing next to her might have felt the same.

So he’d robbed all three of them of a father.

Wonderful.

He tried to apologize, but the words stuck in his throat. Not that he was embarrassed to apologize, but he was embarrassed to even think an apology could make up for the act.

Finally, Finn spoke. “We’ll see how the other missions go.”

The meaning was clear: One base proved nothing, and the hatred was still alive.

The door hissed closed, leaving Ben alone in dim light and sullen earth.

In that moment, it was more tomb than cell.

+++

As soon as Rey returned from her mission, she went to visit Ben. His expression eased into a gentle smile when he saw her, and that was everything she’d hoped. It lifted her spirits. It washed out the cold that lurked at the back of her mind.

_Your power—_

“Ben.” She’d noticed the way the Force softened around him whenever she said his name, like he was smiling inside, too. It made her want to say his name with every sentence. “They still haven’t released you? I’ll speak to Poe. I’ll make him—”

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said softly.

She couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to mind his imprisonment. Why he’d _volunteered_ for it.

“You think you deserve this, don’t you?” She shook her head. “Ben, you don’t.”

“Did anyone surrender?”

She sighed. “Two officers. A lot of the troopers, after we took out the hanger.”

She didn’t tell him how she’d kept her lightsaber ignited after the surrenders. How the Force around her had echoed with the screams of every child mindlessly slaughtered by the First Order. How she’d wanted to hear them scream just the same.

She didn’t tell him about the silent voice that had screamed, _DO IT!_

She didn’t tell him how she almost had.

“You’re upset,” Ben said quietly.

“I’m fine.” A phrase she was coming to hate.

“We should talk about Exegol.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said sharply.

He fell silent, but his gentle brown eyes said it all. Suddenly, she was glad he was in a cell.

“I’m going on another mission.” She’d meant to ask him to come with, been willing to break him out and ask Poe’s forgiveness later.

Now she wanted to be alone.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said.

He’d always been like that. Blunt. Honest.

“Well, I’m not interested,” she said, “in your opinion.”

Or in you. Or anything.

She turned to leave, typing the exit code with such force that one of the buttons didn’t immediately pop back up.

“I know how it feels,” Ben said behind her. “To have all that . . . anger.”

“You don’t have any idea how I feel,” she growled.

_The Sith are reborn in her!_

_My spirit will live on in her!_

The door hissed closed behind her. She stormed her way to the central command post, and she demanded her next mission.

But Poe was as much of a thorn as ever.

“Your teams need rest. The ships need maintenance and refueling. You’ll go tomorrow.”

“Then send me with a different squad!” she exploded. “I can lead anyone.”

“No. Teams respond better when they have a familiar leader. If we were desperate, things would be different, but we’re not.”

“Oh, we’re _not_ desperate to end the war raging across the galaxy.”

Poe growled in his throat. He jabbed a finger at her. “You _know_ that’s not it. We _are_ ending a war, and that takes more than just overrunning enemy bases. We’re trying to reorganize a Galactic Senate; we’re trying to overthrow planet-wide criminal organizations. These missions you’re taking on are only one piece of the big picture. So unless you’d like to volunteer to help organize a government that keeps an entire _galaxy_ civilized but still fair, my answer is the same: Go to sleep. You can wait _one_ day to blow up the next big bad base.”

Her scowl deepened. She keenly felt the lightsaber at her side. She just needed to _use_ it; then everything would fall into place. Then she’d be focused. Then she could keep the cold at bay.

“The Jedi were once renowned as peacekeepers,” Commander Statura said, looking up from the charts he’d been examining. “Perhaps we should post her in the government. Perhaps it would help us keep order.”

Anything to keep busy. Rey opened her mouth—

“Absolutely not,” Poe said. “This isn’t personal, Rey, but you Force-fiends tend to go a little crazy in positions of power. That’s how we got an Empire, a First Order, _and_ a Last Order.”

“How is that _not_ personal?” she cried.

“No,” he plowed on, “what we need in government is the everyman. We need representatives from every planet and sentient species, and we need them organized in a way where the common voices are heard, not where we end up hero-worshipping one _special_ person and dropping the whole galaxy on their shoulders.”

The other commanders murmured assent.

“What you _need,”_ Rey said heatedly, “is use of the Force. It connects and binds the entire galaxy. You’re looking for balance; it _is_ balance. It’s the only hope of managing a government this large.”

“I told you I’m not putting a Jedi in charge.”

Rey clenched her jaw. “The Force doesn’t only belong to the Jedi.”

_Show him._

_Wipe the smirk off his face._

A thundering headache roused in her temples. She grimaced. Though her hand ached to reach for her weapon, she kept it still.

“What I mean,” she ground out, “is it was fear that wrecked things in the past, not ‘Force-fiends.’ And you’re acting in fear now, too. It’ll end up the same.”

He narrowed his eyes on her. Then he sighed. “Rey, I’m doing the best I can. I’m not trying to run the galaxy; I’m just trying to get it up and running. If you want to present an argument for Force-users in power . . . give it a week and I’ll have a whole committee you can present it to. Just know that I don’t think it’s a good idea”

This time, it was Ben’s voice that echoed in her mind: _I don’t think it’s a good idea._

Even in the humid air, her hands were cold.

“All I want,” she said, “is to go on my next mission.”

“And here we are, back at the beginning.” Poe gave her a wan smile. “Look, I’m as anxious as anyone to have an end to this, but we can’t do it all at once. We need rest. We need preparation. So we need patience.” With a pointed look, he added, “I thought that was a Jedi thing.”

The dissatisfaction crackled in Rey’s bones, but she forced herself to nod. He wasn’t going to bend, and the longer the conversation continued, the more chance of her ending it with a drawn weapon.

She needed to center herself.

She needed to find peace.

She exited the command center and tromped across the camp, dodging around supply boxes and ducking aside whenever someone tried to catch her attention. Out of habit, her steps took her to her forest training grounds. The wet leaves squelched beneath her boots, and the canopy above deadened the noise from the camp until there was only the ringing hum of nature.

Rey knelt in the undergrowth. The gathered moisture seeped through her clothes, chilled her legs. She tried to breathe, tried to clear her mind.

“Be with me,” she whispered.

But she was alone.

And the truth was:

She wanted to be.

She didn’t want to see Luke’s face, to see the disappointment, to hear him say, _You went straight for the dark._ Thirty years ago, he’d defeated the Emperor without even lifting his weapon. She didn’t want to hear anything he would say.

 _In his eyes,_ something whispered, _you were a failure from the start._

Maybe so. He’d been so reluctant to train her, so critical of her every attempt and belief.

_Nothing was ever good enough for Luke, yet he was the man who wanted to kill his nephew._

_He was the true dark._

Rey stood. With barely a thought, her lightsaber was in her hand, and she felt the blue heat to her soul. She ran the blade through the trunk of the closest tree, listened to it crash to the forest floor, and smiled at the song of destruction.

This was all the peace she’d needed.


	5. Chapter Five

Ben waited, but Rey didn’t visit again. It was hard to tell the passage of days locked in an underground cell, but he had a sense, and it wasn’t short. Messages came here and there—successful mission reports and the promise that his situation would be re-evaluated as soon as possible (with the clear caveat that it was much lower priority than dismantling the rest of the First Order). Ben grew more agitated with the passage of time. Just because he’d returned to the light didn’t mean the darkness didn’t call. He heard its whisper, calling him to fear, to anger. He felt the rage of helplessness and the prod to release it. With the Force, he could tear the cell doors free, twist the metal bars apart and walk away. He could walk right through the camp; he was sure of it.

General Dameron was, too. He’d already voiced the concern. If Ben gave in, he would never receive another chance.

So he breathed.

And he curled his fists.

And he released them.

_Patience._

In moments when he was most calm, he felt the pull of the bond he shared with Rey, felt her energy across the universe. Though he still didn’t want to distract her on a mission, there were times the pull didn’t give him a choice, times when he opened his eyes and found himself looking into hers, whether he’d meant to or not.

“I’d rather not do this right now,” she said once, an echo back to their first moments connecting.

She registered the reminder, too, and her expression twisted wryly.

As the days passed, he seemed to catch her more and more in quiet moments, alone. She finally admitted the reason she hadn’t come to visit him in person was that she’d not been back to Ajan Kloss; she’d requested a mission to a system on the outskirts. By night, she was huddled in a cave to escape the planet’s lethal windstorms. By day, she was dismantling a smuggling operation that fed weapons to the First Order.

Ben wished he could be with her. Some days, he came painfully close to tearing the door open after all. But it would be a temporary solution that would lead to much deeper problems.

_Patience._

He would have to content himself with their fleeting conversations across solar systems.

“I’m sorry,” she said once. “For losing my temper when I visited you. I wasn’t mad at you. I was mad at . . . everything else.”

He believed her. And he knew the feeling.

She refused to speak about Exegol, and Ben couldn’t force her. Not to mention every time she pulled farther away, he felt the ache to his soul. So with no way to speak of the heavy topics, he spoke of the light; he continued his quest of dumb questions.

He asked, “Favorite food?”

He asked, “Favorite animal?”

And though there was no sense in the questions, she answered them anyway. Food was fuel. Too many animals in the galaxy to decide and most of them unseen.

“You?” she asked.

Which made him realize his experience was almost as limited. Most of what he’d seen in the galaxy came as a result of his time in the First Order, and it was a blur in his mind, hazy with hatred, the finer details lost. Choosing a favorite anything required enjoyment, and he had never taken the time to enjoy things. He’d been too busy burning them down.

“If you could go anywhere,” he asked instead.

“A core world,” she answered. “I’d like to see the remnants, see what came before. All I’ve known is the outskirts.”

“The core worlds are as much desert as Jakku,” Ben said. “Just a different kind. It’s glass instead of sand, but there’s just as much desolation. The people are cruel and cold. The only thing they care about is wealth.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re from a core world.”

Ben shifted on his cot. “Chandrila. The only good thing about it is the sea.”

When he was a child, his father would take him down to the beach on sunny days, first to build sand fighters, then to shoot blasters where his mother wouldn’t know about it. Until she found the scorch marks in the sand.

Ben’s lips twitched; his chest ached.

“I wish I could see it,” Rey said.

Ben hesitated, then reached out his hand. She reached for him eagerly, and when their fingertips met, he tasted lightning on his tongue. She closed her eyes. He kept the images of that beach in his mind, but he kept his eyes on her.

“Ben, it’s _beautiful.”_

She’d let her hair down. It was so rare he saw it down.

“It is,” he agreed.

“You’re . . . not thinking of the sea anymore.”

She lowered her hand and opened her eyes. Pink glowed in her cheeks. His face must have shared the same color.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

But she met his eyes fearlessly. “Don’t be sorry.”

He wanted to capture her hand again, to pull her closer. Even if he pulled her across space itself.

She asked where he would go, if he could go anywhere in the galaxy.

And before he could help himself, he said, “Wherever you are.”

Their connection ended before he could see her reaction.

Ben rolled over on his cot and buried his burning face in the rough fabric. All night, her voice played through his mind:

_Don’t be sorry._

_Today is what matters. And today, you’re Ben Solo, Jedi Knight._

Force, she made him feel like he could fly. With a connection to her, even a cell could be paradise.

But his next visitor brought him crashing back to reality. It wasn’t Rey.

It was Finn.

The ex-stormtrooper was silent as he came to stand in front of Ben’s cell. The hatred still rolled off him in suppressed waves. Ben waited. It seemed to be the only thing he ever did these days.

He wondered if it was day or night.

Finn finally spoke: “Rey told me you didn’t hate him.”

Straight to the point. Speaking Ben’s language.

“You see how that’s worse, right?” Finn’s fists curled at his side. “We all do things in anger. I get that. But if you didn’t . . . if it wasn’t . . .”

He gestured uselessly. Ben felt the echo in his soul.

How could he possibly explain? Even wanting to, he felt the weight of all his years astray. Every mistake.

“If it wasn’t anger,” Finn repeated, expression hardening further, “then it’s so much worse.”

Even after swallowing, Ben’s mouth was dry.

“You were a stormtrooper,” he finally said.

“Don’t.” Finn jabbed a finger in his direction, eyes burning. “Don’t try to pretend I’m just as bad as you. The first time they ordered me to fire on innocents, I couldn’t. I left. You—”

“I’m not saying . . .” Ben winced. “I’m not saying we’re the same. I’m saying you know the training. Does a stormtrooper kill out of hatred?”

Finn’s jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. But after a moment, he said, “Stormtroopers kill on orders.”

“I took orders from a different commander.”

He could still hear Snoke’s voice, frosted and demanding: _The final step in your training._

His fingers trembled now to think he’d believed it. To think he’d obeyed. He felt the familiar rage, directed now at the past, at himself.

He took a shuddering breath.

Clenched his fists.

And released.

Finn was still silent. Finally, he said, “Are you even sorry?”

It was an awful question, the worst part being that it had to be asked at all. Ben felt his insides shrink, a shudder climbing the vertebrae of his spine.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“Never mind,” said Finn. With a sigh, he uncurled his own fists. “I feel the answer.”

Ben blinked. For the first time, he noticed the singed hem of Finn’s leather jacket.

He’d been practicing with a lightsaber.

Ben had almost forgotten the brief fight with the former stormtrooper on Starkiller Base; he’d certainly wiped it from his mind in notability. After experiencing Rey’s raw talent, it had been hard to see anything remarkable in Finn. Now he could see the influence of the Force bond on his attention and on Rey’s ability.

And beyond that, he could see the potential he’d missed.

“Has Rey been training you?” he asked.

Finn frowned. “I trained in the Order. We just went over—”

“No, training you to be a Jedi.”

The general’s jaw dropped in a comical way. “A Je—me? No, she’s a—I’m not.”

Ben lifted a hand, and a rock just smaller than his palm rose from the ground with it, floating gently through the cell bars until it lowered at Finn’s feet.

“Try it,” Ben said.

Finn looked at the rock like it was about to sprout fangs and launch at his face.

Had Rey not coached him at all?

“You feel the Force,” Ben said.

Finn gulped. “I don’t—”

“You just did.” Ben’s voice went flat. “You sensed what was unspoken.”

Finn looked at him like _he_ was now the one with fangs.

Ben held the gaze with an expression to match his tone.

“I feel . . . things,” Finn finally admitted, somewhat defiantly. “Sometimes. I get ideas. Like Rey on Exegol, I thought . . .”

Ben’s eyes widened. “You thought what?”

“Nothing. It’s not like what you and Rey do.” He nudged the rock with his toe. “What you do is . . . incredible. It’s big.”

“The trees in that forest out there,” Ben said, “are all big. But they all start as seeds.”

Finn opened his mouth, then closed it again without a word. His frown furrowed his brow.

“When Rey gets back,” Ben went on, pulse speeding now, “ask her to train you.”

Maybe coaching her friend in the ways of a Jedi would help her work through the events of Exegol, ease whatever darkness might have taken root. At the very least, it would force her to take a break from her non-stop pace on missions, and a little introspection could go a long way in healing.

For the first time, Finn didn’t immediately protest. Instead, he gave a slow, serious nod.


	6. Chapter Six

Rey had run to the edge of the galaxy, but she couldn’t outrun the voices. They only grew. In every moment, they hovered like ghosts, haunted the sounds of battle around her. Rey felt the heat of her lightsaber and the cold of the Force, and she was the fever between.

She cut through the smuggling operation with more determination than she’d ever felt, with more violence than she’d ever expressed. But when she stood atop its gutted remains, watching the final stragglers flee into the sky, watching her fighters collapse the final underground hideout, she felt no triumph. It was a stroke of progress in bringing peace to the galaxy, but it did not satisfy her.

 _What’s wrong with me?_ she wanted to ask Ben.

But she didn’t want to hear the answer, didn’t want to see him turn away.

 _I did it for you,_ she wanted to tell him. _I would have done anything to save you._

But she never said that either.

Instead, they danced around harmless topics, and she told herself everything was fine while she held her breath to see his next smile.

Then came the next mission report:

“You wanted to blow up a base,” Poe said, saluting her through a hologram. “Go blow up a base, soldier.”

Since Ben’s first report, they’d kept eyes on every base, and this one had started emptying. Not only that, but it held the First Order’s largest cache of weapons. The Resistance could not afford to let them slip off the radar.

“The First Order’s trying to run,” Rey told her fighters. “Not on our watch.”

The cheers echoed back through her comms, along with a rush of the voices within aching for violence. Rey dove headfirst into a frontal assault.

But the enemy already had ships in the sky.

This was not the straightforward takeover of her last base. This was a bloodbath.

Rey lost a full team of X-Wings, and the screams did not die away. They hovered as a fog in her vision, as a heat in her hands.

And when she’d taken the base, when she stood over the final squad of disarmed stormtroopers and they tried to surrender—

—she said, “No.”

Her lightsaber slashed through armor and skin. The loyal blasters behind her fired. The voices in her mind purred:

_You have done well._

And she believed it.

Until Ben’s brown eyes suddenly caught hers. Until the other sounds fell away.

“Something happened,” he said. “I felt it.”

Normally, she looked forward to every conversation with Ben, relished the lighthearted innocence with which he asked random questions that she somehow enjoyed answering. But looking at him now made her feel like she’d been caught hiding a stolen weapon with blood still on the blade.

She was glad he couldn’t see the bodies at her feet.

 _Tell him,_ she begged herself.

But another voice inside, the one that had just ordered the deaths of dozens of troopers, said, _No._

“I lost a team.” Her throat tightened as she spoke. “Gunned down by the First Order.”

He must have felt the truth of it, been satisfied. Through the Force, she felt a wave of comfort, and even though she didn’t deserve it, she closed her eyes briefly to savor the warmth.

“Come back safely,” he said, almost a plea.

Yet even after the connection ended, after the mission was over, she didn’t climb in her X-Wing. Instead, she caught a glimpse of a red-clad figure, and she followed it.

In an abandoned, shaded valley, she found the Red Guard. They bowed at her appearance.

“We have come to serve the Empress,” they said.

She should have sent them away, should have ordered their surrender.

“Will you do exactly as I say,” she asked, “whatever I say?”

“Complete obedience,” came the answer.

“Then congratulations. You fight for the Resistance now.”

They told her of unrest in the galaxy, things she’d never realized. The First Order not only camped out in secret bases but had spread like an infection to the farthest reaches. Organized missions would never end the corruption. But she could.

The cold inside purred with every word.

She turned away, and her guards fell in step.

+++

“Tell me a story,” Rey said.

Ben scowled. “What?”

“I’m serious.”

She wasn’t in her X-Wing; she wasn’t wearing her helmet, and he could tell she wasn’t operating controls. She was walking, picking her way carefully through some kind of invisible landscape. Thin tendrils of fog drifted into Ben’s cell.

“Where are you?” he asked. It had only been a day since he’d felt the sharp disturbance that told him she was in danger. He’d told her to come back safely.

She hadn’t come back at all.

“Tell me a story,” she repeated.

Ben sat cross-legged on the dusty floor of his cell. He picked at a raised mound of dirt by his ankle. “Once upon a time, this scrappy girl from Jakku asked the wrong guy for a story. The end.”

She shot an arm out, and a small rock launched forward, trailing fog. Ben barely raised a hand to halt it before it hit him in the chest. He glowered.

She stuck her tongue out. “That’s for calling me scrappy. It’s an insult to scavengers.”

His lips twitched, but he restrained the smile. _Teasing._ No one had ever dared that before. Once again, he felt the urge to pull her close, but no matter how vivid she seemed, she was a galaxy away.

And she likely didn’t feel the same. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that she’d stabbed him through the stomach with a lightsaber.

Even if she’d also healed him.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Anything, Ben. Distract me.”

That boded well.

“Are you on a mission?” Was she in trouble?

She glanced at him, and the pleading look in her eyes silenced his questions. He didn’t know why she needed it, but if she needed him to talk, he could . . . manage.

Ben rested his hand on his knee, palm upturned. The small rock drifted idly above it.

In a halting voice, he said, “I never believed in the First Order. The quest to rule the galaxy, the construction of Starkiller Base to obliterate opposition . . . I despised all of it. But I went along with it anyway, and even now, I don’t know why.”

Rey’s brow furrowed. “I thought you wanted to rule the galaxy.”

Ben shook his head. “Power is exhausting: commanding armies, trying to stay one step ahead, taking criticism for every decision that goes wrong. I never wanted to be Supreme Leader, either, but then I killed Snoke, and I just . . . took it. And I tried so hard to convince myself it was a success, gaining this thing I never wanted. Like if I just turned one more corner, it would all come together and be worth it.” He grimaced. “It never was.”

“Someone has to do it,” Rey said. “Leadership, I mean. Someone has to be in charge. And if you ask me, better that it be people with good hearts like you.”

Ben frowned. “I never did a single good thing in the Order. I just dug a pit deeper and deeper, and I dragged the whole galaxy down with me.”

“You killed Snoke. That was a good thing.”

“No, it wasn’t.” He could still feel the heat of hatred in the memory. “I cut him down like an animal, and I _relished_ it.”

Her face hardened. “The galaxy’s better off without him.”

“Maybe so, but I didn’t do it for the galaxy. I did it because I hated him, and I wanted to see him choke on his own blood. I wanted to punish him for building me up only to break me down.”

After the event, Ben had even regretted that the death had been so quick.

Thinking of it now made him ill. His fingers trembled.

“Snoke was a tyrant,” Rey snapped. “He spread war and fear across the galaxy; he ordered the deaths of entire _planets._ And the way he treated you is on that list of crimes. He deserved everything he got and more.”

And Ben finally heard it.

“That’s the dark talking,” he said.

Rey stumbled. She came down hard on one knee, hissing in pain.

Ben moved without thinking, crouched next to her in an instant. He almost expected her to disappear, but their connection through the Force remained firm, and her shoulder was solid beneath his fingers.

“It’s nothing.” She gave a laugh that still held an edge of injury. “I’m fine.”

She’d said that a lot recently.

Ben gripped her other shoulder, too. Waited until her eyes met his.

“You can tell me when you’re not,” he said.

She looked down. A gash across her knee leaked blood. As she moved to stand, Ben held her back.

He tried to remember how it had felt when she’d healed him, and then, pretending to a confidence he didn’t truly feel, he hovered his palm above her knee. The Force flowed through him like his own pulse. Slowly, the wound began to knit itself back together, until only smooth, unbroken skin remained. Ben lowered his hand to Rey’s knee, his thumb brushing her healed skin. It was soft to the touch.

He looked up into her eyes, lightheaded and reeling—though he couldn’t tell if that was from the effort of healing or the feel of her skin.

Her expression was unreadable. When Ben moved to stand, she was the one who held him back, gripping his arms tightly.

“You saved my life,” she whispered.

Ben almost choked. “It was just a scrape—”

“No, with Snoke. He wanted you to kill me. If you’d refused, he would have done it himself. You saved my life, Ben, and if nothing else you did is good, _that is.”_

Warmth spread through his chest. Before he could stop himself, Ben reached up to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear. She leaned into his touch, pressing her jaw to his palm. Her eyes burned with the same intensity he felt inside, and in an instant, the lightheadedness came rushing back.

Ben leaned in.

And she disappeared, their connection severed.

He was alone in a cell. A prisoner. A war criminal. He curled his fingers in empty air and pressed his forehead to his fist.

He was a fool.

+++

Rey ached for Ben’s touch the instant it disappeared. She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes.

He burned like a sun, and if she kept getting close, she would come away scorched. The cold inside her resisted him. But Rey couldn’t.

She took a deep breath, and then she pushed herself to her feet. She continued picking her way carefully through the battle wreckage and the fog that obscured it until she came to the ship she needed—the command vessel. True to her roots, Rey scaled the towering rubble without problem. She hauled herself through a shattered port window and into the vessel’s interior, where she found a still-functioning command deck, just as she’d hoped. The ship would never fly again, but it still had all its records.

And the records held tracking information on First Order officers.

She downloaded everything onto a data stick, brought it back to her Red Guard.

“You’re sure you can crack the Order’s codes?” she asked.

She could have asked Ben, but she didn’t want to hear him say, _I don’t think it’s a good idea._

Let him stay in his cell where he was safe. Where he saw only what she wanted him to see.

“Yes, Empress,” said the Guard.

She didn’t bother asking how they got their information. She just waited for the coordinates.

+++

Rey traveled the galaxy. From planet to planet, she sought out roots of the First Order, and she found them, entrenched in every system. The people lived in fear. They looked for a leader.

Someone had to do it.

On Arkanis, she found an officer of the Order in hiding, running a local gang ring. They plundered homes and cut out the tongues of anyone who dared to argue. Rey witnessed such an event, and it boiled the blood in her veins. The constant rain of the planet soaked her clothes, stuck her hair to her neck. The Red Guard stood silent on the street behind her.

Someone had to draw the line.

And Poe was wrong; it couldn’t be an “everyman.” It couldn’t be someone normal. The job was too big.

Rey kicked down the door of the gang’s hideout, and her Red Guard rushed in. Screams and the shriek of blasters filled the air.

The officer tried to make a run out a back door.

Rey held out a hand—

—and lightning arced from her fingers, dropping the man mid-step. He screeched in pain. He writhed.

And he deserved every instant.

After he fell still, Rey walked slowly to his side, prodded him with her boot. The low, drawn-out moan spoke to his consciousness.

“I was aiming for your tongue,” she said. “Shall I have another go?”

He fainted.

As Rey and her guard returned to the street, a few timid citizens whispered the news. Then the cry went up.

_Hero._

_Savior._

Rey smiled.

 _You are powerful,_ the voice inside her whispered. _You do what no one else can. Did the Jedi restore order to the galaxy? Did Luke Skywalker?_

“You are magnificent, Empress,” said her guards.

But when she finally returned to Ajan Kloss with a sleek new starship and her Red Guard, the opinion was quite different.

“You send all your fighters back here alone, go off-radio for a _week,_ and then show up out of nowhere with the Knights of Ren?” Poe was steaming at the ears. The other commanders remained silent. “Tell me—do I demote you, do I suspend you, or do I just ask how many more prison cells we need to scrounge up for our friends in red.”

“The Knights of Ren were killed on Exegol,” Rey said. “This is my personal team. _You_ were the one who said we needed to continue gathering more allies.”

“I was thinking more civilians-ready-to-rise-up, less cult-needing-overthrow.”

Rey rested a hand on her lightsaber. “Civilians will just be cut down by the enemy, you know that. It’s not enough to just gather anyone who’s willing. We need a real army. Trained, elite fighters.”

“Guys—” Finn started, stepping forward.

Poe widened his eyes. “Stormtroopers. You’re talking about stormtroopers.”

“No, I’m talking about Force-users.” Rey glanced over her shoulder at the eight guards behind her, waiting at rigid attention. “Not Jedi, not Sith. Something new.”

“So the Knights of Ren.”

“Poe!” Her hand tightened on the lightsaber shaft, the metal cold against her fingers. “This is not a game.”

“I’ve never treated it like one!” Poe stormed out from behind the command table. “You’re the one dropping off communications right when I need my best fighter. The First Order launched an attack two days ago, and where were you?”

Rey’s throat tightened. “I was—”

“Not one day after Exegol, you were jumping down my throat to dismantle the First Order faster, and then you just skip off on holiday to train new recruits! That isn’t what I need you for, Rey. That isn’t what your role in this operation is.”

Rey’s voice turned icy. “My role is whatever I decide. And it isn’t enough to dismantle the First Order.”

Poe wheeled away with a scoff. When he turned back, he said, “Now who’s not desperate to end the war raging across the galaxy?”

A sharp hiss cut the air. Rey’s lightsaber glowed in her hand.

“Rey,” Finn said sharply. The other commanders stepped back, but he and Poe stood firm.

Rey pointed her lightsaber out at the horizon. “You want to know where I’ve been? I’ve been out there. I’ve _seen_ what’s happening in the trenches. This war is not over, no matter what we claim. Not even close. Thirty years ago, Leia and the others brought down the Empire and what happened? The galaxy was still lawless. The New Republic did nothing to bring order. They squabbled over minor laws while people were starving in the Outer Rim. You know what? Starkiller base did us all a favor when they took out the Hosnian system.”

The camp stood in silence, broken only by the hum of her weapon.

“Wow.” Poe narrowed his eyes. “That was some real First Order propaganda. You been reading Hux’s diary?”

Rey returned his look. “Grow up. The point is, taking out the Empire only created a power vacuum, and something will always step in to fill a vacuum. Maybe something much worse. If we dismantle the First Order, nothing ends there.”

“We’re building a government. We had the first meeting of planetary representatives while you were off comms.” He eyed her lightsaber. “Unless you’re implying _you’re_ the solution to this problem.”

Rey’s ears rang with remembered chants.

_Hero._

_Savior._

And her own words to Ben: _Someone has to do it._

She opened her mouth—

Then his words: _That’s the dark talking._

—and she closed it.

Her fingers tightened around her lightsaber.

She deactivated the blade.

“I’m part of the Resistance,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be in the trenches.”

She turned, gesturing for her guard. They followed without a word.

“Rey, wait—” Finn stepped forward, reaching for her, but she ignored him.

“Keep your comms on this time!” Poe shouted as she climbed the entry ramp to her gunship.

It wasn’t until she hit hyperspace that Rey regretted not taking Ben with her.


	7. Chapter Seven

Ben didn’t expect the visit from General Dameron. In a knee-jerk moment of panic, he thought the head general must have come to deliver an execution sentence.

But when he heard the true reason, the execution might not have been so bad.

“Red robes, you said?” Ben felt a cold hollow in his stomach.

“If it means something, fess up.” Poe folded his arms. “I don’t like this feeling that I can’t trust my best fighter. Especially when she’s a friend.”

“But you trust me?”

“You’ve been a model prisoner so far, and your enemy intelligence has been good. Are you about to make me regret it?”

“No. I mean, I hope not.” Ben stood. “They’re called the Red Guard, and they served the Emperor.”

The general’s expression fell. “You’re joking. You’re awful at it, by the way.”

Ben gave him a half-lidded stare. “I am awful at it. That’s why I don’t.”

“So the Emperor was a trash compactor, and his guards were so glad to have him gone that they now diligently serve the woman who killed him. That’s what you’re telling me.”

Poe was like a starfighter, zipping from one idea to the next without any thought between. Ben had always disliked high energy. He took a long, slow breath.

“The Red Guard see her as the Emperor’s successor. As the next Sith.”

“So they’re delusional.”

Ben sure hoped so.

But Poe seemed to doubt his own words. After a few moments of scowling, he said, “Sith, that’s the . . . that’s what you were, right? Lightsaber on a bad guy.”

Ben tried not to read too much into the past tense.

“Not quite that simple,” he drawled. “But something like that.”

“Well then give me the complex version.”

As if it were so easy to boil the galaxy’s most ancient religion down to a throwaway sentence.

“The Force exists in and throughout all things,” he said. “Good and bad, light and dark. When the Jedi Order was first established, thousands of years ago—”

Poe held up a hand, deadpan. “Back to simple.”

Ben growled deep in his throat.

“When you fly your X-Wing,” he said, with the air of speaking to a toddler, “your ship draws power from an engine. Can’t fly without it. A frigate uses a different engine, one that gives power in different ways, but still one that makes it fly. Jedi draw from one engine and Sith draw from another, even though it’s all the Force.”

“Don’t think I don’t hear that tone.” Poe arched an eyebrow. “But I do think I get the gist. _Has_ Rey switched engines?”

Ben wavered.

She’d killed the Emperor in anger, yes, but she also continued to fight for the Resistance.

“Complex again,” he said softly. “It isn’t always a conscious choice, and it isn’t always a permanent one.”

Poe sighed. He looked down at the ground, toe tapping slowly against the dirt, hands on his hips.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally, lifting his eyes. “All this Force stuff . . . it’s just nonsense to me.” He hesitated for another moment. “Rey called me out, you know. On being afraid. And I am. Whatever you can do—you and Rey and Luke and the Emperor—it scares me deep. It has ever since you captured me and split my mind open like a melon until I had no choice but to give up answers.”

Heat flushed through Ben’s face. He swallowed.

“I’m sorry.” Even though it was never enough, there wasn’t much else to say.

Silence hung between them, broken only by the rhythm of the general’s boot against the packed ground.

In the end, he said: “You tell me, Solo. What do I do with you, and what do I do with her?”

Ben’s eyes widened.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Poe said immediately. “You tell me, and then I decide if I like it.”

Still.

Ben thought back to Luke’s training temple, to the days when Snoke’s voice had first wormed into his mind, to the days when he’d made his first dark mistakes. In the past, he’d sometimes wondered what might have happened to him had he not been forced into confrontation with his uncle, but he’d never wondered what might have saved him in the early days after. His mother, perhaps. Or would seeing her have forced him to run deeper in shame? He’d certainly run to the edge of the galaxy to avoid it, thrown himself into the First Order, done anything and everything to eradicate Ben Solo.

“It’s delicate,” he whispered. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “These choices are up to Rey, and trying to force her to make them correctly might only drive the knife deeper.”

“So I just let her run loose with Sith loyalists? Let her build an army? That’s what she’s talking about—elite fighters and how no one can keep the galaxy in line except a Force-user.”

“She’s confused.” Ben shook his head. “The dark side, it gets in your head. It preys on your fears. After your first step, it sinks in claws, and it does everything possible to convince you you’re superior, that anyone who tries to stop you is an enemy, that anyone who tries to _save_ you is the same.”

Ben saw his father’s eyes as he spoke, felt the man’s hand on his cheek. His throat tightened.

“And every mistake you make,” he said, “just makes it that much more shameful to admit they’re mistakes at all. Because it’s harder to face the past than it is to kill it.”

Silence fell once more, uninterrupted and heavy as an anchor. Ben would have given anything to dwell on some _other_ mistake, but it would always be the death of his father that dragged him down most. Even after the resolve he’d found on Kef Bir. Even after the love he’d felt from his mother in her final breath.

Sith or Jedi, there were some things no power could set right.

“What changed it for you?” Poe asked. “Allegedly.”

Ben shifted. He dragged himself out of memory, back to the present. “My mother.” _And Rey._

The general’s expression softened. “She had a strong effect on people.”

To say the least.

“Look.” Poe rested his hands on his hips once more. “I don’t trust you. I’d be a fool to. But if you’re really set on walking with the good guys now . . .” He rubbed a hand over his face and managed something that might have been a smile. “As your mother taught me: Good guys live on second chances. Give me a day. I’ll see about getting you out of a cell and onto a short leash.”

Ben felt his heart lift. He almost managed a smile of his own.

“A _very_ short leash,” Poe reiterated with a pointed stare.

Still. It was a start.

+++

In her weakest moments, Rey wanted to go back to Ajan Kloss. She wanted to trade jibes with Poe, wanted to hear BB-8’s happy beeps at her return. She wanted to laugh with Finn. She wanted to talk to Ben in person rather than in stolen moments through the Force.

“You are bringing order, Empress,” said the Red Guard.

 _Your power will save the galaxy,_ whispered the cold.

So she charged forward.

And in the brief glimpses she caught of Ben, when he asked where she was or what her missions were, she redirected his questions, used the Force to shield her feelings, to hide her confusion. She knew she should push him away; he was a distraction. And yet . . .

“Is our bond,” she asked once, “the only reason you noticed me? The only thing that keeps drawing you back?”

She held her breath waiting for the answer.

He didn’t even have to speak it. She caught the rush of images, of emotions. She saw herself through his eyes, her hair windswept, her eyes fierce. She felt his heart pound.

And after the connection ended, she still struggled to catch her breath.

She’d never imagined anyone could see her that way.

 _He makes you weak,_ snarled the voice inside.

He did make her feel weak. It was thrilling.

But Ben was lightyears away. Every time she decided to go back to him, the Red Guard drew her attention to another planet in need, another group of people who could only be rescued by her. She had a work to do.

_Your power will save the galaxy._

+++

Laundry duty. That was the leash.

Ben would have rather stayed in his cell.

Poe delivered the assignment with an unabashed grin. “Hey, I don’t know how it was for you First Order bigwigs, but here in the Resistance, every man pulls his weight. Out there in the field and here in the fabric.”

He’d brought Ben to a corner of the base at the jungle’s edge, tucked beneath a rocky overhang. The Resistance didn’t have access to a laundry droid, at least not here, so instead, they had an ancient, rickety machine attached to a generator. The washer had to be older than Ben. And after washing, clothes were expected to hang on a line to dry in the humid air. A futile effort.

At least it explained why the new gray tunic he was wearing was still damp.

“This is a disaster,” Ben said flatly.

“I’m sure a _supreme_ leader such as yourself can whip it into shape,” Poe said cheerfully.

Ben ignored the jibe.

“You’re telling me _everyone_ takes a turn at this?” he said. “Even you?”

The front lines of battle would have been preferable.

“Oh, not me,” Poe chirped. “I’m head general. Way too busy for this grunt work.”

Ben scowled.

“You want a place here, you’ve gotta contribute. I don’t want you near spaceship maintenance, inventory, or anything else that might provide a sabotage temptation. Laundry’s the best option. If you tear a sleeve, it doesn’t mean death for someone under my care.”

He still said it with a smile, but the intent was clear. Even though he’d been upfront about his continued lack of trust, Ben felt a flash of irritation.

“I gave up everything,” he said.

“So did every fighter in this base,” Poe countered. “I’m not trying to demean you, Solo. I’m testing the waters. I know you’re capable of more; show me you’re willing to do less.”

_Patience._

Ben dragged in a slow, deep breath.

His nod was barely a twitch, but he gave it anyway.

“Good choice,” said the general.

“For the record, this is humiliating.”

Poe laughed, a blasting sound that probably scared innocent birds in the forest.

“Blunt honesty,” he said. “I like it. Keep that up, maybe someday I’ll believe you’re genuine in everything.”

The rules were straightforward. Ben was given an assignment as laundry boy; a room to stay in (almost as cramped as his cell, though the real floor and full sleep couch were welcome improvements); and a metal transmitting cuff, which tracked his location at all times. He was forbidden to leave camp or to approach any starship.

And in that, General Dameron was clearest of all: “You go outside your bounds, I get an instant alert. You take the cuff off, I get an instant alert. I get an alert, I turn this whole camp of blasters on you. Understand?”

Ben nodded, and he reminded himself that he’d dug this hole with his own hands. He would have to get out of it the same way.

So he dedicated himself to . . . laundry.

The ancient machine could only tackle small batches at a time, and he quickly discovered that it couldn’t handle flight suits at all—loading one in would cause the machine to rattle and shake so heavily it started disconnecting hoses. Ben was forced to wash the flight suits by hand, soaking himself and the ground around his wash tub in the process.

It was a good thing Poe had still declined to leave a guard; there was no one around to witness how often Ben hurled a thermal glove or flight vest into the dirt only to have to retrieve it and start over.

No one except her.

“What did that poor vest ever do to you?” Rey drawled.

Ben started, almost knocking over his wash tub. Water sloshed against his knee and soaked down to his ankle. He couldn’t care less.

“What happened?” he demanded.

She was bruised and bloodied; a recent cut across her forehead had scabbed unevenly. Her standard off-white clothing was more off-white than ever.

“You should see the other guy,” she said with a crooked smile. It turned into more of a grimace as she touched the scab on her forehead.

Ben would like to see the other guy—and give him bruises to match.

“Rey,” he said, softer now, more serious. “Where are you?”

He’d asked before, and she always dodged the question. He didn’t even know why he asked; it wasn’t like he could jump in a starship and rush to meet her. But he couldn’t stand not knowing _anything_ while she was clearly in danger.

Rey drew a stool forward, took a seat close enough her knees were almost touching his. It was strange to see her as clearly as he could see the rock outcropping overhead, hear her as clearly as he heard the rattling washer on the other side of the wash area, all while knowing she wasn’t actually here.

She surprised him by answering honestly:

“Phindar. For now.” She looked down at her hands, picked at the dirt under a nail. “I’ve been all over the galaxy. Even to a core world. You’re right; there’s nothing there but scum.”

Somehow it hurt to have her say it. Rey had always seen the light in dark places.

Or maybe it was just seeing her bruised and weary that hurt.

“Tell me a story,” he said.

She snorted. Looked up. “What?”

“Distract me. Tell me a story.”

“Oh, I see. This is payback.”

He lifted a shoulder noncommittally.

Her crooked smile returned.

“Once upon a time,” she said, “I met this complete ass. He kidnapped me. Tried to chop my limbs off with a laser sword, if you can believe it.”

Ben’s stomach fell.

“I’ll just skip to the end,”—her voice softened, and she bumped her knee into his—“where he turned out to be sweet and caring and . . . and maybe the best thing that ever happened to me. And, to be fair, I did stab him once, so we can probably call the laser sword even.”

While he was still in his cell, she’d asked him if it was only their bond that drew him to her. Their connection had ended before he’d had a chance to answer.

Now he said, “Is it only the bond that draws you to me?”

Her answering smile stole his breath.

She leaned forward—

Ben was already there. He half-rose from his seat, curling one hand around the back of her neck, bringing her lips crashing into his. He felt her laugh, and then her fingers tangled in his hair, and she kissed him back with the same enthusiasm.

Until the connection ended.

And Ben overbalanced into a tub of soapy, lukewarm water.

And somehow still thought it was worth it.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna take a small break for the holiday. Merry Christmas, everyone! See you after.

Rey fought for the people. Young and old, species she’d never encountered speaking languages she couldn’t understand—she fought for all of them. And soon enough, she wasn’t only burning the roots of the First Order; she was eliminating rogue criminals and established warlords. Any threat to order in her galaxy.

Then came the day she overturned a Resistance outpost.

Poe was furious. Rey gave no apology.

“These people were living in fear,” she said through her comms. “Your team here was corrupt. They were seizing food supplies, bacta—things they had no right to.”

“I’ve known Tomric since our spice days. He would never—”

“Oh, so a former criminal went criminal again. There’s a surprise.”

“Is that what you think of me? Of Finn?”

Rey leaned closer to her commlink, braced her elbow across her ship’s controls. “I thought this was your philosophy, Poe. You’re the one who likes to drag people through the mud for their past. Or the laundry, as it were.”

She’d seen and felt enough in her brief connection with Ben to put things together. She’d also seen the silver cuff on his wrist, seen the green light that flickered on it periodically. Poe had put a tracker on him. Like he was a _slave._

In the radio silence, she gave a triumphant smirk.

“Just so you know,” she added, “I’ve put a _tracker_ on your friend Tomric’s ship. If he puts one toe out of line again, I’ll know.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,”—Poe’s tone had gone icy—“but Solo’s been cooperative ever since his surrender. You’re the one causing problems. And this is way over a line, Rey. You can’t call yourself Resistance and turn on your own allies.”

“I can if my so-called allies are enacting tyranny.”

The silence stretched longer this time. Rey had just braced herself to stand when Poe spoke again.

“What’s the evidence?”

“What?”

“You say the outpost was corrupt. Then we’ll have a trial. I’ll call Tomric in, you bring evidence. Council of commanders decides. If you’re right, Tomric’s out, and a different team mans that post. That’s the correct order of things.”

Rey stiffened. “This outpost is closed, Poe. The people have lived in fear long enough.”

“So you’re saying _you_ get to decide if someone’s corrupt or not. You get to run them off because you want to. Rey Palpatine is the new order in the galaxy.”

Despite his tone, something inside thrilled at the words.

“I’m doing what’s _right,”_ she said.

“That’s funny,” he said, “because it sounds to me like one of my best allies enacting tyranny. So you tell me: Next time we meet, will I have to pull my blaster? Because that’s your philosophy.”

Rey’s stomach flipped, and she crushed the fearful, pathetic instinct.

After a pause, Poe said, “I want you back at base as soon as possible. We need to—”

“Your threats don’t scare me,” she said.

“I’m not trying to threaten you; I’m trying to make you see reason.”

Rey dropped a hand to her lightsaber, felt in it her cold certainty.

“I’m doing what’s right.”

“Rey, come back to base. That’s an order.”

She turned her comms off. With a smile, she exited her gunship and rejoined a cheering crowd, raising a gracious hand as they chanted her name.

 _You have done well,_ said the voice inside.

And she knew it was right.

+++

Few people ever spoke to Ben when they brought laundry. There was one Mon Calamari mechanic who said “Good morning” regardless of the time of day and a few others who managed smiles, however strained, but the majority of the camp gave him openly hostile glares and icy silence. He was not the type who could break the ice from his side, and his signature blank face only seemed to increase the hostility, so he kept his eyes down.

For the most part, he kept to the laundry alcove and his small room, but there were three times he ventured into camp:

Once to find a socket spanner when the blasted washer started leaking.

Once to turn a thermal detonator over to General Dameron after someone left it in a jacket pocket. (That was a fun conversation.)

And once to visit his mother’s former room.

He’d been curious since arriving, but even after receiving permission to wander, it took time to gather the courage. When he finally did locate the room and step inside, he wished he hadn’t.

It smelled like her.

The sleep couch was tidy, the covers folded with even, square edges. Someone had gathered up what few belongings existed and packed them carefully in a box. It wasn’t much: a few rings and hairpins, extra clothing. When they’d lived on Chandrila, Ben’s mother had always kept an exquisite wardrobe, and whenever his father dared protest the procuring of a new dress, she’d held her head up regally and said, “I am a princess, after all.”

His father had never argued that.

Ben sighed. Without even meaning to, he reached for Rey in the Force, but it was like connecting to a port while blind—he felt a vague sense that she was out there without any true connection. If he could have centered himself, he might have managed it, but there was no calm to be found while surrounded by reminders of everything he’d lost.

When he could bear it no longer, he turned away. But as he did, a small orb caught his eye. It sat in the corner of the room, not abandoned, but placed with care. Ben crouched beside it and lifted it gently. It had the satisfying weight of metal or stone, with a delicate, patterned texture across the surface. In his palm, it glowed a gentle, swirling white.

His throat tightened. He remembered a different room, and his mother’s soft voice:

_You’re never alone, Ben. There’s a moon watching over you._

A nightlight. A childhood gift from his mother after he’d told her he was afraid of the dark. When he’d gone to the training temple as a teenager, he’d never given a thought to anything he’d left behind.

Of all the things for her to keep.

Ben set the moon lamp beside the box of her other possessions. But he didn’t move.

In the end, he took it with him. It sat in his room, his only belonging, somehow both comforting and scorching to look at.

And he returned to the laundry.

Glimpses of Rey were few and far between, the connections shorter than ever, and Ben started to wonder if he’d only imagined the kiss. He couldn’t help the feeling that he was standing on the deck of a ship, the world rolling beneath his feet, taking him farther and farther away from the girl on the pier.

 _Center your thoughts,_ his uncle would have said.

But whenever Ben tried, the ground pitched.

_Meditate on your turmoil._

If he closed his eyes, he saw his mother. His father. And he couldn’t breathe. In his nightmares, the dark loomed at his back, ever-present at the edge of his peripheral, waiting for just one misstep to swallow him again. When he woke, he still felt it hanging on him like a fog.

He scrubbed his hands raw in sudsy water, but the only thing he could clean was his skin.

“I’m afraid, Ben,” Rey whispered.

And he whispered back, “Me too.”

Only to realize the whole exchange was a dream.

+++

Rey was being torn in two.

By day, she was Rey Palpatine, bringing order to the galaxy. By night, she dreamed of Ben, and he saved her from the demons inside with kisses that flooded her soul with light. The Force around her was as confused as she was, and at times, it roared at her call, while others, she couldn’t rouse it at all.

She couldn’t remember how long it had been since Exegol. A century, at least. Everything before it was another life. She’d become entrenched on Tatooine, trying to end the remnants of slave trade, and the planet seemed significant, but she couldn’t remember why. All she knew was that it mirrored Jakku in the shimmering heat, and that was reason enough to hate it.

“Remember your purpose,” said the Red Guard.

She tried, but she couldn’t remember if her purpose was order or Ben.

Until she saw people shackled and cuffed. Until she remembered they were stolen from home planets, sold at a price, forced into humiliating work while their captors laughed.

_The enemy._

She saw Poe Dameron’s face.

“Remember your purpose,” said the Red Guard.

She would end tyranny.

Though she woke the next morning groggy with fever, she went out anyway. A group of Tuskan Raiders stood between her and the secluded base where the Colubridans brought in their slave transports. Rey had planned the strike for days, waiting for a desert storm to pass, and now that the moment had come, she spared no thought for the raiders.

It was only after she pulled her blade from the head of a Bantha—after the woolly animal collapsed and sprayed sand across her boots—that Rey looked at the sprawled Tuskan corpses and couldn’t remember if they’d attacked first.

Suddenly, she couldn’t remember if their camp had even been in her way.

 _All who stand against you shall fall,_ whispered the cold.

Rey shivered in the desert heat.

_Remember your purpose._

Rey gripped her weapon, and she made her way to the base. The Colubridans fell just as the Tuskans had, and the freed slaves wept as they thanked her.

Until that night, lying on a narrow cot in Mos Eisley with the Red Guard in neighboring rooms, she realized—

They were fearful tears.

And no one had thanked her at all.

They’d asked: _What now?_

She’d accused Poe of creating power vacuums with nothing to fill them. Was she freeing people with nowhere for them to go?

She reached for Ben, fought through the fever and swirl of confusion, until her fingers brushed his in the dark.

She said, “I’m afraid.”

“Me too,” he admitted.

She couldn’t even see him through the haze. And by morning, she was sure it was a dream.

 _Only you,_ whispered the dark.

The next day, her fever broke, and she found her certainty once more.

+++

Whatever haze had seized Ben finally cleared, granting him a ragged peace once more. He stayed away from his mother’s room, and though he knew he should look inward, he turned his attention fully outward. He might have scrubbed the whole camp clean had it been possible.

In the middle of the day, he sensed someone hovering just out of view, but he didn’t turn. It wasn’t Rey, so he didn’t care. He continued working on the water hose, which he had to reattach to the blasted washer at least once every three days because it was so incompetent at holding itself together.

After enough haunting that he should have become a ghost, Finn finally stepped into view.

Ben stuck a hand out, waiting.

“What?” Finn slapped a pocket, like he’d forgotten something.

“Your jacket,” Ben grunted. “Or whatever else you want washed.”

“Oh, I’m not—no.”

Ben’s lips compressed to a line. “Just come to gloat, then?”

The corner of Finn’s mouth twitched. “Well, it’s not awful to see the Supreme Leader reduced to _my_ former duties. But also no. I’m here to . . .”

“Talk about Rey,” Ben finished, tensing. Her name was practically written in the Force ripples around the former stormtrooper. Suddenly the washer seemed like the best company he could hope for.

Without an invitation, Finn flipped the empty wash tub over and settled on it like a stool. Ben finished tightening the hose and set his spanner aside, but he remained seated on the damp ground.

“Poe says she’s gone off radio again, and—”

“Again?”

“Right. You wouldn’t know.”

Ironic, since Ben was certain he was in the most frequent contact with her. But that didn’t mean he ever knew what was going on. She’d confused him since their first meeting.

“She’s out there alone.” Finn licked his lips. “And she never says it, but she feels so much responsibility for everyone. That much stress will break a person. I want to help, but . . . When you fought her on Kef Bir, I rushed out, and I couldn’t do a thing.”

 _She doesn’t need you,_ Ben wanted to say.

He crushed the dark whisper.

“Having you as a friend has always helped her.” He might have emphasized ‘friend’ too heavily.

Finn frowned.

“I’ve seen it,” Ben said shortly.

“I’ve thought about what you said.” Finn shifted. “She’s the _only_ Jedi. That’s where she’s got all of that responsibility alone. If I really want to help, I should start there. And she can’t train me. She won’t even speak to me.”

It was Ben’s turn to shift. Her friends had always meant so much to her; it didn’t make sense she would cut ties.

_What are you doing, Rey?_

“So how about it?”

Ben blinked. “How about what?”

“You know.”

“What?”

With some struggle, Finn wrestled a palm-sized rock out of his pocket. He placed it carefully at his feet, like it was a fragile instrument instead of a lump of useless nothing. Then he waved as if he’d said it all.

 _“What?”_ Ben repeated, ready to launch the rock at his face.

“Show me how to move it, obviously.”

Ben’s jaw hung slack. Then he gave a vehement shake of his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

 _“You_ can move rocks!” Finn protested.

Ben stood, already reaching for the next basket of laundry. “No.”

“So much for trying to be all honest now.”

 _“I_ can move rocks. I can’t teach _you_ to move rocks.”

Finn leapt to his feet as well. “You’re the one who said I had the Force to begin with!”

“I don’t control that.” Ben emptied the basket into the machine. His face burned. “But I can’t teach you to use it. Literally any other teacher would be a better choice. Meditating alone in a cave would be a better choice.”

“Well I don’t have another choice.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Ben saw the defeat in Finn’s face, saw the way his frame shrank. He’d tried a friend and been rejected. All that remained was the enemy.

“If you want to learn to pilot a star fighter,” Ben said, “you don’t ask the guy who crashed his ship and barely survived. You’d be better off teaching yourself.”

“That’s stupid,” Finn said flatly.

Ben stiffened.

“That guy can teach me the controls. He doesn’t decide whether I crash _my_ ship. My own skill does that.”

They stared each other down until Ben finally scowled. He set the basket aside and twisted the dials of the machine. It rattled in the silence.

“Close your eyes,” he said at last.

Finn scrambled for the wash tub and took a seat once more. He scrunched his eyes shut.

Ben resisted the urge to roll his own. “Deepen your breathing.”

Again, perfect obedience.

If only he’d been a problematic student. If only he’d complained about instructions or demanded explanations of everything. Then Ben could have written him off as troublesome and bowed out for real.

Just the rock. Just this once.

Ben dragged over his own stool and sat in front of the general.

“Now extend your mind,” he said quietly. “Feel the space around you, even though you can’t see it. Be in the shadows as surely as you’re in your seat.”

Finn’s brows drew together. His lips turned down.

“Breathe,” Ben reminded him. And: “Patience.”

Unconsciously, he felt his own breathing lengthen. He felt the world around him sharpen and soften at once, the macro of the whirring machine and jagged rock overhang softening into the micro of the energy that bound them, the threads that tied the tapestry.

And even with his eyes open, he sensed the threads that wove into Finn.

He sensed the light.

“I feel something,” Finn whispered. “Like a . . . like a pull.”

Ben tried to remember how his uncle described it.

“The Force is the energy that binds us,” he said. “The light of it draws us toward peace and trust. The dark draws us toward fear and despair.”

Finn’s eyes snapped open. “What did _I_ feel? Am I feeling the dark? How do I tell?”

Ben held up a hand to still him. “In nature, the energies are equal and, therefore, neutral. The pull on all living things is toward both unless influenced otherwise. It’s by our choices we decide to empower one or the other.”

“How do I choose light?”

“By choosing peace and trust.”

Finn gave a frustrated grunt. “How do I do that while lifting a rock? I just . . . _peacefully_ lift the rock?”

“Yes,” Ben drawled. “Just as I _hatefully_ lifted rocks for so long.”

Finn scowled.

“Maybe you should worry about _if_ you can lift a rock first.”

Finn squared his shoulders and stretched out his hand, narrowing his eyes on the rock.

The Force around him remained as still as the unmoved object. Probably because he hadn’t even bothered to ask for the next step.

Ben felt his eye twitch.

_Patience._

“Breathe,” he reminded himself and his student.

After some of the tension drained from Finn’s expression, Ben went on: “Focus on the rock’s energy. Find the thread that binds it to you. Find that pull.”

It was easy to sense the moment it happened.

“Now pull back,” he said.

With obvious effort, Finn clenched his fist. Scrunched his face.

The Force gave a single hiccup.

And the rock twitched.

“Did you see that?!” Finn leapt to his feet, pointing. “Did you see it?!”

“I have eyes,” Ben said dryly. But he couldn’t help remembering his own initial forays into the Force, his own first successes.

 _I did it, Mom!_ And her hug that spoke of all the pride she didn’t say.

Ben cleared his throat, blinking hard.

“Try again,” he said. “You haven’t lifted anything yet.”

Finn returned to the effort with diligence. Ben kept an eye on him for a while, but other than reminding him to breathe, there wasn’t much use for him, so eventually he returned to the laundry.

“Unclench your jaw,” he said once. “The Force can’t flow through you smoothly if you’re all hard edges.”

“Then how does it flow through you at all?” Finn shot back. His good-natured grin made it all the more obnoxious.

With a flick of his hand, Ben overturned the tub, dumping Finn on the ground.

By the time Ben had folded a batch of laundry, organized it on the pickup table, and hung a second batch, the future Jedi finally lifted a puny rock ankle-high.

“That was incredible,” Finn whispered, a reverence in his voice like they stood in a temple. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face; he wiped his sleeve across his forehead.

“Well, you were a useless stormtrooper.” Ben smirked. “But with some heavy polishing, you might turn into half a Jedi.”

“You really think so?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think; it’s not up to me.”

Finn caught him by the shoulders, startling him. Ben stiffened.

“Thank you,” he said.

And that was worse. It made Ben’s skin crawl in a weird, warm way.

“You did all the work,” he managed.

Finn slapped him on the shoulder and stepped back. “What’s next?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s next for how to be a Jedi?”

“Keep moving things. Keep feeling the energy. If you want to be a pilot, you memorize all the controls before you ever take flight.”

“Is that how you trained? With Luke, I mean.”

Ben looked away. He lifted the next basket.

“I attacked my master, turned the other students into a cult, and burned the temple.” He dumped the clothes into the open machine. “Maybe stick with rocks.”


	9. Chapter Nine

“Training Finn?” Rey laughed.

“It’s not ongoing,” Ben said, his tone surly. “I just showed him . . . _one_ thing.”

It was a lie to sit with him like this, pretending she was a different person. But as much as she wanted the truth, she also wanted the lie.

 _He’s weak,_ something inside whispered.

“I think you’d make an excellent master,” she said defiantly.

The connection severed, but not before she saw the way his expression softened. Not before she felt the warmth that made her want to rush across the galaxy into his arms.

She couldn’t do that.

Instead, she went to work. One of her guards was killed in a battle, and with a cry of rage, she shot lightning into the enemy hideout, collapsing the roof of their fortress.

_Teach them respect._

She did.

And that evening, when the sounds fell away, Ben caught her slathering bacta across her arm to hide the burn of a blaster.

“What are you fighting for?” he asked.

_For order._

_For freedom._

_For you._

“For the Resistance,” she said.

The girl with the windswept hair and fierce eyes, the girl that made his heart pound, the girl he’d crossed a galaxy to kiss—she fought for the Resistance.

So Rey clung to the lie, even as it ripped her apart.

“I want to fight with you,” he said.

Her own heart pounded. Until she remembered Exegol.

If he stood at her side, he’d be cut down, just like her guard.

“Rey.”

The connection ended.

And she was glad.

+++

Ben couldn’t help feeling like he was missing something. When he saw Rey, when he heard her voice, he felt the same warmth he always had. But there were fleeting moments where she seemed to pull away, where she almost seemed to _resent_ him.

After the kiss, he’d been convinced she felt the same way he did. So why was it when he tried to connect with her now, the Force around her swirled with confusion?

Maybe he’d read everything wrong. Maybe she’d only saved him because she was good, and then she felt responsible for him, and he’d put her in an uncomfortable spot by assuming more.

A wet, ripping sound split the air. Ben scowled and lifted the waterlogged flight suit in his hands. He’d scrubbed so hard, he’d torn a sleeve.

He deposited the drenched suit in a mending basket, fetched a vest, and resumed his fierce scrubbing.

When he heard a voice above him, he expected the friendly Mon Calamari mechanic or even Finn.

Instead, he looked up into the cold blue eyes of a Chagrian. Just behind him stood two human pilots, a man and woman. All three were still in their flight suits. All three had matching hollow expressions; Ben’s still-present scowl did nothing to improve them.

“Sorry?” Ben said, having missed whatever was first spoken. He tried to make his voice as neutral as possible, since his expression had already failed.

“Not yet,” the Chagrian responded, tilting his horned head. “But you will be soon enough.”

Ben still wasn’t centered, so the shivered warning of the Force was sluggish. He’d barely shifted his weight before all three Resistance fighters were on him at once, wrestling him to the ground. The Chagrian sank clawed fingers into Ben’s hair and submerged his head in the washing tub. Foul water flooded his mouth, burned his eyes. He struggled to lift his head, but the weight of three-on-one was too much.

When the Chagrian pulled him up for air, Ben came up with a snarl. He couldn’t move his limbs, but he dragged on the Force anyway, managing to overturn the tub of water. One of the pilots slipped on the muddied ground, and Ben wrenched free—only to catch his arm on one of the Chagrian’s horns.

He gave a low grunt of pain. Blood seeped from his skin, darkened his ripped tunic sleeve. The distraction allowed the three attackers to draw their weapons, but it also saved their lives.

Because Ben realized the instinctual lengths he’d been about to go to.

And his fury shriveled into a cold shame.

“I should kill you,” the Chagrian snarled, “like the First Order killed my sister.”

Ben stared into the man’s blaster and said nothing. Water dripped down his face. Blood dripped down his arm.

“His wife. Her brother.” The Chagrian nodded to one of his companions, then the other. “How many of us do you take before you’re satisfied?”

Ben didn’t recognize any of the fighters before him, couldn’t guess if he’d been the one to cut down any of their loved ones. But it didn’t matter.

And he didn’t apologize, because how sorry he was didn’t matter either.

He just waited.

“The Order has slaughtered people across the galaxy,” said the female pilot, quiet and icy, “murdered an entire Resistance squadron just today, and here you are, acting like you don’t have the blood of _planets_ on your hands.”

“Not anymore,” said the Chagrian.

His finger tightened on the trigger—

Ben held his breath.

 _“STAND DOWN!”_ someone bellowed.

All four of them started. The Chagrian fired, but Ben felt the warning this time, and it was wide enough he could yank himself out of the way. The ground beside his shoulder smoked. When he blinked, the echo of a red streak traveled in his vision.

“What the _hell_ am I seeing here?” Poe Dameron demanded, his own blaster drawn.

But it wasn’t pointed at Ben.

It was on his own fighters.

“Weapons down,” he ordered.

Ben had never realized the high-energy, borderline-goofy general could have murder in his eyes.

The three pilots holstered their blasters, all of them overlapping in their justifications. But Poe ordered them to silence.

“Come with me. _All_ of you.” There was no room for argument in the statement.

Poe lowered his weapon, but he never holstered it. It remained loosely at his side as he herded the four of them to the center of camp. Ben felt naked under the open stares of every Resistance officer. His arm ached, but he didn’t dare draw attention to it. Better not to offer the sharks the sight of blood.

And before he knew it, Poe had gathered the entire base. It was like standing at the center of an arena, surrounded on every side.

Ben would have preferred the quick death by single blaster.

“These three pilots,” Poe announced, raising his voice to be heard to the back of the gathered crowd, “just fired on an unarmed prisoner.”

The Chagrian started another defense, but Poe shot him a look that silenced him on the spot.

“Now, that prisoner,” he went on, “is the former Kylo Ren. So let’s have a show of hands. How many of you wish they hadn’t missed? Hell, how many of you wish _you’d_ taken that shot?”

Ben did not like the direction of this conversation at all.

He liked it even less as over a dozen hands raised.

“Thank you,” Poe said. “You know I like honesty. So let _me_ be honest.” He rounded on the three pilots. “You’re off your squads. All of you. Effective immediately.”

Cries of indignation rose from the three fighters and people in the crowd. Poe hopped up on a crate of supplies, towering over the audience, and raised his voice once again.

“Let’s get one thing straight. All of you. Who are we?”

An uneasy silence fell. A few people murmured.

“We’re the Resistance,” Finn said with confidence, standing at one edge of the crowd.

“Thank you, general. We _resist._ We withstand.” Poe raised his blaster at the sky. “What does it mean to all of you to carry a weapon? Does it mean you can kill anyone you don’t like? Does it mean you have _power_ over people, that you’re _superior?_ You know who has that mentality?”

Gazes shifted to Ben, and he stiffened. His face flushed with heat.

“No, not him,” Poe said. “These three.”

The pilots stiffened just as Ben had.

“He’s slaughtered _millions,”_ the female pilot shouted. “He’s a monster!”

“I don’t care who he is!” Poe shouted back. “I care who _we_ are. And _we_ are not the guys who start the violence. We are not the guys who build the bigger gun. _We_ hold the line. _We_ stand in front of star destroyers and planet killers and we say, ‘It doesn’t go past us.’ We are not fighting _people;_ we are fighting _tyranny._ Do you understand that?”

He swept his eyes over the crowd, and silence answered back.

“Just because we’re the good guys,” he said, “doesn’t make the other side always bad. Finn, Jannah, Ma’htka—some of our best people came from that side. Why not others? Remember something: Remember they take children out of homes. They brainwash followers. They deal in absolutes: ‘If you aren’t in our ranks, you’re the enemy.’ Not us. That’s not who we are.”

A droplet of water slid down Ben’s spine, but it wasn’t the reason for his shiver. He glanced out at the crowd, and his gaze landed on Finn. The budding Jedi wore a serious expression, arms folded, nodding along as Poe spoke.

Beside him shimmered a faint outline. Someone Ben was sure he would see if he only tried, if he only gathered his focus.

He swallowed, and he looked back at Poe.

“So if you think you signed up for a different Resistance, if you carry a weapon to kill, if you’re here to avenge every fallen comrade and watch the blood flow for generations, I’d invite you to reconsider. Or I’d invite you to leave.” General Dameron holstered his blaster. “This Resistance carries weapons to protect. This Resistance holds the line. And you walk into this with your eyes open about what it might cost, just like every fallen hero who came before.”

He jumped down from the crate, and he stared evenly at the pilots.

“What will it be?” he asked.

The female pilot left. A few members of the crowd followed. As their ships vanished in the sky, the rest of the camp was already gathering itself and returning to work.

Ben turned to find Finn at his side.

“You need a medic,” the general said.

As Ben glanced down at his arm, the pain came rushing back. He grimaced.

Finn escorted him to a medical room in the base, and Ben got a slathering of bacta across the cut while the medic—a Phelsum barely half his size—chattered about muscles and tendons, her large eyes wide and nervous. Apparently, Ben was lucky, and he would heal in just a day or two.

He tried to hold very still, because she jumped every time he so much as twitched. Poe’s speech may have deterred people from shooting at him, but it couldn’t cure the fear. Ben wished he knew how to do that himself.

While the Phelsum was wrapping his bicep, the head general himself entered.

“You still breathing, Solo?”

“Obviously,” Ben drawled. Then, haltingly, he added, “I appreciate—”

“Just doing my job.” Poe frowned. “And not quite quick enough. Sorry for the shot they still took.”

Ben was all-too-familiar with trying hard and coming up short.

“Without you, I’d be dead,” he said simply.

“When I got the vitals report, I thought you already were.”

Ben frowned.

It was Finn who explained: “Your cuff transmits your location, but it also transmits your vitals.”

“Huge adrenaline and heartrate spike,” Poe added. “Either you and the washer fell in a Sarlacc pit or you were under attack.”

“All done!” the Phelsum squeaked, securing the wrap. She skittered backwards, out of Ben’s reach and then out the door before he could even thank her.

“I’m surprised you cared,” he said, gesturing after the vanished medic. “Could have just done that.”

“Not in this Resistance,” said Finn.

Poe smiled. “Glad someone was listening. You can’t expect to have friends here, Solo, at least not yet. But I’d say you’ve definitely earned not having enemies.”

He slapped Finn on the shoulder and exited the room.

Ben slicked his wet hair back and rolled up his left tunic sleeve (the right sleeve had been cut off at the shoulder so the medic could access his wound). He had a spare tunic in his room. As soon as he could make it there, it would officially be his only one. His old black clothes were already gone.

“He’s wrong, you know.”

Ben started; he’d expected Finn to be already gone.

“You have a friend here,” Finn added. “She just . . . isn’t here right now.”

Ben swallowed. He pressed a hand to the bandage, then stood.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” Finn asked. “I’ve seen what you can do. Even without a weapon, you could have killed them.”

“I did fight back.” Ben rolled his arm meaningfully. “And then I remembered the body count I already carry.”

One step from the edge. It was far too close.

With a frown, Finn prodded, “They almost killed you. It would have been self-defense.”

Ben looked away. “Self-defense is only justified for a self worth defending.”

He exited the first-aid area and made his way back to his room. It was impossible to get fully dry in the horrid humidity, but he gave it a half-hearted effort and then did his best to ignore his still-damp hair. He’d already shed his ruined tunic, and just as he reached for the single remaining one, Rey appeared.

“Want me to put on a cowl?” he drawled, more self-conscious than anything.

“Actually”—she raised her eyebrows in a way that made him feel more than half naked—“it’s not a bad view.”

Ben suddenly found himself too tired to work out whether she meant it or was only teasing. His limited patience for the day had already been spent.

Then her eyes narrowed on his bandage. “You’re hurt.”

He yanked on his tunic. “It’s been dealt with.”

“Good.” Her expression hardened. “I wish I could have dealt with it myself.”

Before he could work out if she meant fighting for him or treating his wound, she was gone. Something eerie lingered in the silence. Hesitantly, Ben reached out through the Force. But though the connection to Rey was as slippery as ever, he sensed nothing of concern. Nothing at all, actually. Almost a blank emptiness.

Someone pounded on his door, startling him. There was a good chance he would meet a blaster on the other side, but Ben opened it anyway.

Finn held up a stack of three folded tunics with a smile. “Thought you might need these.”

With Ben still gaping, the ex-stormtrooper pushed the stack into his hands.

“Next time,” Finn went on, “fight back a bit more. Self-defense doesn’t mean you have to kill, and I haven’t got a Jedi teacher to spare.”

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” Ben said dryly, but something inside him eased.

Finn turned to leave, then hesitated.

“Rey’s believed in you since she first came back from Ahch-To,” he said. “It never made any sense to me.” He lifted one shoulder slightly. “Now it sort of does.”

As he disappeared around the corner, Ben continued to stand in his doorway like an idiot, replaying what he’d said.

If Rey still believed in him now, if she cared as much as he sometimes thought— _hoped_ —she did . . .

Then why was she always a universe away?

+++

Rey was in the desert with dawn barely a sliver along the horizon.

Ahead of her, a moisture farm.

The sand dragged at her feet, but she made her way forward all the same. At the crest of a dune, she pulled a flat scrap of metal from the sand, let the golden dust cascade at her feet. She slid down the dune into a small valley, and she almost remembered being a child.

_“Rey.”_

She stood. The sled was gone. Dawn’s light shone at the top of the dune, but she was fully in shadow.

A man stood at the crest, ethereal in the pale light.

_“Rey, come back.”_

But she shrank from it. She turned into the dark entryway of a home.

And she remembered what made Tatooine special: It was the home of Luke Skywalker.

Rey sat up with a jolt, heaving for breath. Her neck was slick with sweat and her fingers still tremored in the wake of the dream. Or maybe it was a vision.

It was Ben she saw in the faint light, staring at her from across a galaxy.

“Nightmares?” he asked quietly. “I have them, too.”

She couldn’t manage a response. It took all her focus to hide what he didn’t know.

“You’re not alone,” he said, an echo of words he’d spoken to her before. She remembered sitting on Luke’s island, shivering in the aftermath of the dark, searching desperately for hope.

She’d found Kylo Ren.

Her tremors eased, and she said, “Neither are you.”

Then he was gone.

Dawn crept through the slatted window. Rey dragged her lightsaber from beneath her pillow. When she stared down at it, the silver-and-gold shaft nearly sparkled in the light, and she thought of Leia. Of Luke.

In her memory, Kylo Ren’s saber blazed red and commanding. She remembered the power of each of his blows on Starkiller Base, the way he forced her back, the way his presence overwhelmed the very air.

_Only the strong can protect what they care about._

The Jedi were weak, but Rey had the example of someone who was strong.

She tossed the lightsaber away. It clattered to the floor.

In the cold light of morning, she gathered her guard. She’d lost three to war. Five remained.

“This galaxy needs a strong leader,” she said.

“Yes, Empress,” they chorused.

“I will make myself strong.”

“Yes, Empress.”

And she felt the silent assurance—the promise that if she only walked forward, if she turned the next corner, she would find everything she was lacking.

It would all be worth it.


	10. Chapter Ten

Finn proved to be an annoyance. It seemed every time Ben turned around, Finn was there, begging for homework or eager to show progress.

One day, he brought in Luke’s lightsaber.

Ben immediately shook his head. “General Dameron would have my head if he caught me—”

“Well, General Finn approves it,” the budding Jedi countered. “Show me something to practice that won’t get me burned. And won’t put another hole in my clothes.”

“What if you hand me a laser sword, and I use it to run you through?”

“Then I guess the whole camp knows you’re a fraud.”

Finn tossed the lightsaber before Ben could make another protest, and on instinct, Ben caught it. He stared down at the silver haft, the black grip. His uncle’s lightsaber, and his grandfather’s before. In that moment, it felt too heavy to carry.

Yet he couldn’t hand it back.

The Force pulsed around him, bright in every bone, lifting and dragging, balanced. He didn’t know how he could feel balance and confusion all at once.

_What am I doing here?_

Finn wasn’t the only one who needed direction.

Ben had no home, no family. He was in love with a girl who’d left him behind, and maybe she was never coming back and he would be in love with a dream forever.

“This is the weapon of a Jedi,” Ben forced out. “And I’m not a Jedi.”

Finn met his eyes evenly. “You look like a Jedi to me.” He stepped closer. “When I left the Order, at first, I didn’t even tell people I’d been a stormtrooper. I was so afraid everyone would judge me for it. But they didn’t. Rey, Han, Leia, they all accepted me. You heard Poe. We’re not here to count all the dirt. We’re here to make a change. If you’re making a change, in yourself, in the galaxy, you belong in the Resistance. And from what I understand, a Force-user in the Resistance—that’s a Jedi. Right?”

Ben had no home, no family, and no idea what to do. But he had one friend.

He blinked hard. Cleared his throat.

And he ignited the lightsaber.

“Watch closely,” he said, voice still gruff from the emotion he couldn’t clear.

While the Force sang around him, Ben walked through a set of defensive stances, things he hadn’t practiced since the temple but that came flooding back all the same. The lightsaber swung smoothly in his hand, hummed comfort in the air.

He shifted on his heel, transitioning to offense.

 _Offense and defense,_ Luke whispered in his mind, _push and pull. In all things, balance._

In the dark, he’d hammered forward, all offense. Now, he felt the scales tip. He felt abilities awaken he’d forgotten he had.

And when he came to a stop, the confirmation came in Finn’s voice:

“Wow, I’ve never seen you move like that. Usually you’re all _thunk, thunk, thunk._ ”

Ben shot him a half-lidded glare.

“The dark has steel boots,” he said, deactivating the lightsaber. He missed the hum immediately. Something in it had lifted his soul.

Though it was difficult, he held the weapon out to Finn.

And quickly realized the man was a disaster.

After Finn almost cut the washer in half, Ben banished his student from the laundry cave. They both stood outside in the open air, and when Finn made his mistakes, he sliced trees instead of tunics.

“Don’t lean into strikes so much,” Ben said. “Solid core, quick limbs.”

Finn tightened his core, and already, his stances were better. There was no grace in his movements, but that would come with time. Ben remembered the frustration of his own first days with a lightsaber. His uncle had feather steps and more flexibility than a Twi’lek dancer, while teenage Ben couldn’t move without tripping over his own big feet.

At least those days were behind him. He smirked.

A vine hooked Finn’s boot, and he pitched forward. Ben threw a hand out, pulling the lightsaber to him before it could impale the only friend he had.

“You should be practicing with something less deadly first,” he said. That was probably Jedi Master 101. “My mistake.”

“Rey makes it look so easy,” Finn panted, hauling himself up to a sitting position.

Ben’s lips twitched. “She’s a natural.” To say nothing of her Force bond with someone already trained. “The rest of us have to claw our way up.”

He ran his thumb over the lightsaber, and he missed the weight of his own, the feeling of a grip unique to his hand. It had not been a mistake to abandon his former weapon on Kef Bir, but someday, he would need a new one.

Rey had never crafted her own lightsaber. For a fleeting moment, Ben wondered if he could offer to teach her, if it would be enough to draw her back. Or maybe it would just put her in one more awkward corner.

He thought of that morning at dawn, when he’d told her, “You’re not alone.”

He’d held his breath after speaking, wondering if she remembered when he’d first said the words. It seemed a lifetime ago, when she’d told him of a hopeless, dark cave; when she’d sat curled in a blanket, searching for hope; when she’d reached for him and he’d brushed his fingers against hers even as they existed worlds apart in every way.

For him, that moment had changed everything.

For her, he didn’t know.

Until something of the tension around her relaxed and she said: “Neither are you.”

The same words. How had they come so far and gone nowhere at all?

Finn’s voice cut through his thoughts: “Thinking about Rey?”

“No,” Ben lied, stiffening.

“I was.” Finn sighed. “Maybe it was a bad idea to try to be a Jedi. At this rate, it’ll be a decade before I can get out there to help her.”

Ben pursed his lips.

 _Don’t ask,_ he warned himself.

“What’s your relationship with Rey?”

Force, he was a fool.

Finn gave an awkward half-laugh. “You mean, like, are we . . . ?”

Ben tried to keep his expression neutral.

“Nah,” Finn said. “She won’t even let me hold her hand.” At Ben’s frown, he added, “Inside joke. Never mind.”

Though he tried not to show it, Ben relaxed.

Finn adopted his obnoxious grin. “No worries, great Jedi Master. This humble pupil wouldn’t dream of stealing your girl.”

Ben’s cheeks flushed with heat. He wished there were a tub to overturn.

All he could do was say: “I’ve changed my mind. You can practice with the lightsaber.”

Finn laughed. He slapped a hand to his heart as if wounded.

“Seriously though,” Finn said. “It’s obvious there’s always been something . . . strange between you two. No one can compete with that. I didn’t like it before, but now I think you’ll treat her right, and that’s all I care about. She’ll always be my friend.”

Ben’s scowl softened. He tapped the lightsaber against his palm.

Finn climbed to his feet, brushing himself off.

“Find something non-lethal,” Ben said, “and try again. Maybe we can cut that decade down to five years.”

+++

Kyber crystals were a hard commodity to hunt down, but in the end, Rey found a stash. Enough for two lightsabers.

Or, to be precise, two blades. One lightsaber.

She could see it already; she’d seen it once before. In a vision. It was beautiful.

She gathered the rest of her materials.

And then she set to work.

+++

Finn’s progress was slow, and he grew discouraged over it. Another thing they had in common.

“What?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think all my famous tantrums are because I’m a man of patience and talent, do you? I was always a step behind, full of potential I couldn’t harness. That was my fear: mediocrity. And along came Snoke to tell me I was something special.” The memory was sour in his mouth. “I wasn’t.”

He pinned a set of trousers to the overhead line and reached for the next. Finn sat on the stool, trying and struggling to lift a whole basket of clothes that had yet to be washed; Ben had forbidden him from practicing on clean batches after he’d dumped a set on the ground.

“I don’t think anyone is,” Finn said. “Special. Or maybe we all are. Something like that. Balance, you know. But who cares? If you have something to work for and something to fight for, that’s plenty in life.”

Shuddering, the basket lifted an inch, then thudded back to the dirt.

“What are you fighting for?” Ben asked.

“Rey. And Poe. Chewie. Rose. I’ve built a family here. I’ll fight for all of them.”

_Chewie._

Ben had only seen the Wookie once in passing, as he was first being escorted to his cell. Since then, Chewbacca and Lando had been out on a mission in the Falcon. It was a confrontation that would have to happen eventually, and Ben prayed he’d come out of it with his arms intact.

But if he didn’t, it would be only fair.

Finn stood abruptly. “Okay, my head’s about to burst. Time for a break: General Finn’s orders.”

Ben continued his task, but he did glance over his shoulder.

“Have you ever thought of a surname?” he asked.

“People don’t generally leave them lying around in the hyperspace lanes,” Finn said. “If I see a sign someday—you know, ‘Surname free to a good home,’—maybe I’ll consider it. Until then, I’ll just be Finn.”

Ben snorted. Even if he’d been unable to feel the weight of emotion in the Force, it was obvious the indifference was faked. He finished pinning a vest and turned to face Finn.

After a hesitation, he said, “Organa’s not bad. Clunky, if you don’t mind that.”

Finn’s eyes widened.

“What?” Ben looked away. “I chose my father’s name at a young age. It’s stuck. But my mother was always . . . grieved . . . there was no one to be an Organa. There’s so little of Alderaan left in the galaxy.” He shrugged, face burning. “Anyway, it’s just a name. Take it or leave it.”

As he pinned the next tunic, he pinched his finger in a clip. He shook his hand with a hiss.

Behind him, Finn spoke in a small voice: “Finn Organa. Is it . . . is it really okay?”

Ben kept his face forward so the general wouldn’t see his half smile. “Go lift some rocks already. You’re slacking.”

Word of General Organa the Second spread quickly through the camp. Though Ben hadn’t intended such an effect, it softened some of the lingering hostility towards him. When the Phelsum medic dropped off some sheets to be washed, she darted a quick glance toward him and squeaked out that she thought Her Majesty (his mother, Ben assumed) would have greatly approved.

Ben didn’t know what to say to that. He managed a nod, and the medic scampered off again.

General Dameron even dropped by one day.

“Finn tells me you’re ready for more freedom,” he said. “That true?”

Ben’s mouth went dry. Once again, he barely managed a nod.

“Alright, I’ll take it under advisement. Although it would be a shame to lose you here. My flight suits have never been so clean.”

Ben scowled, and the head general grinned.

Finn had located a blunt training sword, which he used for practice until Ben was satisfied he wouldn’t accidentally dismember himself (or anyone else). Then he graduated to lightsaber-versus-droid, learning to anticipate blaster shots, to deflect them.

“You make your enemy’s power your own,” Ben said.

“Like Poe said. We absorb the violence. We hold the line.” Finn watched the hovering orb droid with steady eyes. When it fired, he flicked his wrist, reflecting the shot perfectly. It zapped against the droid’s shields, but the little machine still sparked and buzzed angrily. It darted behind a tree. Finn pumped a fist in triumph.

Ben smirked. “Now just do that 800 more times.”

Something dark rippled at the edge of his senses. He turned, but there was nothing in the forest. Just the hanging vines, the hum of insects.

Finn powered down his lightsaber. “What is it?”

Ben tilted his head. He stretched out with his feelings.

The droid darted out and shot a low-powered bolt. Finn hissed, clutching his leg.

“You lowered your defenses,” Ben said. “Work on that. I’ll be back.”

He headed into the forest.

“Where are you going?” Finn called.

But Ben didn’t answer. He pushed through the low brush, wove around trees, following a feeling.

It led him to what must have once been a clearing. Now it was a death trap. Fallen trees braced each other up haphazardly. Rodents scampered in the dark shadows beneath the angled trunks. Even as Ben absorbed the scene, one of the trees groaned. Something snapped a branch.

He brushed his fingers over the scorched stump of a tree, scraping through the newly grown moss to reveal the old injury.

It had been severed by a lightsaber.

There was no mist in the jungle, but Ben felt it all the same: the fog of the dark side, clinging to his skin.

And in it, the worst signature imaginable.

“Rey,” he whispered.

The sounds of the forest fell away into their bond, and Ben turned to meet Rey’s eyes. He waited for her to speak; she didn’t. The silence was somehow louder than everything that had come before.

Her hair was down. But that wasn’t what captured his attention. Everything he’d missed pulsed in the clear message around her, in that same fog that chilled him to his core.

“Rey?” His voice was hoarse now. He couldn’t have missed it for so long, not this dark, not this deep.

Not in her.

And then the answer became clear: She gathered in a deep breath, and the Force around her fell still.

She’d hidden it from him.

And like the unbalanced fool he was, he’d believed it.

+++

  
  


Rey felt the pull, as irresistible as the man behind it. She looked up.

Into Kylo Ren’s brown eyes.

The connection had caught her off guard, and it took all her focus to still the Force around her, to calm what was now always raging.

“You look lost.” Rey could scarcely breathe, scarcely hold the act.

And when she saw in his face that it didn’t work, something inside her was glad.

“The galaxy needs me,” she said, abruptly now. Excited. “And I need you. I need you to show me the way.”

_Show me how to be strong._

+++

Ben saw it in her eyes, felt it in the Force. Not so long ago, she’d been the first to truly see him, the first to cut through the black to the light still struggling inside.

Now she wasn’t seeing him at all.

“Kylo Ren, you mean,” he said, voice hard.

+++

“That’s who you are,” Rey said.

His resistance was her fault, she knew. Even now, the weakest part of herself cried out for Ben Solo.

She crushed it.

“You were the strongest person I’d ever met.” She shook her head. “And I ruined it. I softened you.”

+++

Ben couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She’d _saved_ him. He’d been so weak, he’d obeyed orders to kill his own father. The strongest thing he’d ever done was turn from the dark, and she was the one who’d stretched out her hand, who’d given him the willpower to do it.

But when he tried to say any of it, he couldn’t find the words.

“Kylo, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. It’s chaos out here. The galaxy needs order. It needs _us.”_

The dark crept into his mind with her words. For so long, he’d guessed at her feelings, wondered what she kept unsaid. Now it was in the open: _I need you._ It tingled in his spine.

He’d been Kylo Ren for so long. He could do it again. He would do anything for her.

_I need you._

The ground beneath him tilted.

Ben curled his fists.

He released.

And he breathed.

“Come back.” He lifted a hand. “Please.”

But the connection severed, and he was left alone in a forest tomb, his fingertips numb with the cold.

+++

_Come back._

Rey smiled. She attached the final part, screwed everything into place. She ignited her new lightsaber, relished the sharp red glow.

When she met her remaining guards outside, she said, “Set coordinates for Ajan Kloss.”


	11. Chapter Eleven

When Ben stumbled back to the edge of the forest, he didn’t have to say a word.

“I felt it,” said Finn. The training droid was gone. He sat cross-legged on the ground, a staff balanced across his knees.

Rey’s staff. Ben felt something twist inside just seeing it.

“She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

Ben nodded.

“Then we’re going after her.”

Finn grabbed the staff, used it to pull himself to his feet.

“When you first start training,” Ben said, “is when you’re most susceptible to the pull of the dark side.”

It was what his uncle had told him. If only he’d listened.

Finn scowled. “So I should just stay here? Leave my friend in danger?”

“I don’t know what you should do.”

Ben might have spoken the words to a mirror. There was no one left to guide him, to tell him which path was right. And it was hard enough to be Ben Solo in a secluded camp with nothing to fight but memories and boredom; once he stepped back into the real world, with its chaos and confusion, with the woman he loved begging him to return to the dark, what then?

Was Kylo Ren inevitable?

Without warning, Finn tossed the staff. Ben barely caught it.

They didn’t speak. The lightsaber lay abandoned on the ground. Finn raised his training sword.

Ben gripped the staff, and he swung.

Finn took the immediate lead, using a familiar weapon. His strikes were quick and powerful. One of them caught Ben squarely in the hand, numbing his fingers. He missed a weapon with a cross guard.

But the more time he spent mourning the past, the faster he would lose in the present.

Ben breathed deeply, evenly. Even in the heat of battle, he felt a cool calm. He adjusted his hold, his mindset, until the staff became easy to swing. He thought of Rey, of her rapid steps and spins, the way she guided her momentum into an unwieldy weapon and let it give her the power she didn’t possess raw.

Ben had that raw power, and after he adjusted, the staff doubled it. He drove Finn back, just as he had on Starkiller Base. The Force squirmed around his apprentice, slippery and unfocused, but it surged in Ben until, at last, he threw out a hand, and the training sword went spinning away. Finn tripped, crashing to the ground. Ben held the staff to his throat.

“Forgot to breathe,” Finn said sheepishly.

Ben almost smiled. He held out a hand, and Finn took it, climbing to his feet.

“It’s time,” Ben said quietly. Long past time.

The moment he said the words, the Force around him seemed to hum with approval.

Finn frowned. “What?”

“Sit,” said Ben.

He took the lead and seated himself at the base of a tree, resting his head against the bark. The jungle canopy above glowed green in the sunlight. Leafy green. Life green.

_I need you._

He couldn’t face her if he couldn’t face himself. Maybe Kylo Ren _was_ inevitable.

There was only one way to find out.

“Meditation,” he said. “Center your thoughts, center yourself.”

Finn groaned. “Can I skip this part of being a Jedi? My mind’s always buzzing. There’s no calm in there.”

Ben stared at him flatly.

“This is the part . . .” Finn sucked in a deep breath and expelled it all at once. “This is the part where you tell me that’s exactly why I need it, isn’t it?”

Ben raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, I get it—one question. Does this help us help Rey?”

“Hopefully,” said Ben.

“You’re a very reassuring master. Truly inspiring.”

Ben rested his hands on his knees, straightened his spine. After another sigh, Finn dropped to the ground and mirrored the pose.

“When you’re truly connected to the Force,” Ben said, “you’ll sense things you wouldn’t otherwise. You may even . . . see things.”

Finn frowned. “Like a hallucination?”

 _Like a ghost._ “Like a vision. And be careful with them. They don’t always show the truth. At least not all of it.”

He waited for Finn to nod.

And then there was no more stalling.

“Close your eyes,” Ben instructed. “This time, don’t feel the Force out there. Feel it within.”

He was afraid to look inside.

Afraid of how much dark would still exist.

But he closed his eyes, and his mind turned inward naturally. He felt the energies within himself, knotted and tangled. Perhaps more confused than they’d ever been. And the shadows were as deep as he’d feared.

 _Let go of the fear,_ Luke’s voice whispered. _It does not control you._

But it had for so long. It was like a shield, a reason and excuse for the avalanche of mistakes to his name. If he released it, there would be no barrier between him and the burden.

“There’s something . . . dark,” Finn whispered.

Without opening his eyes, Ben said, “Regret. Fear. Anger. The shadows within. Draw in the light, and let it banish the dark.”

_Hypocrite._

_Patience._

_Fear._

“Breathe,” said Ben.

In unison, he and Finn breathed in.

And Ben faced his fears.

All at once, he stood alone in the dark, the abyss stretching in every direction.

 _“Look at you,”_ said a voice behind him.

Ben knew. He turned slowly—

—and looked into the black mask of Kylo Ren.

 _“Ben Solo.”_ The tinny voice echoed in the dark. _“Laundry boy for the Resistance. You’re pathetic.”_

A red saber cut the dark. Even looking at it, Ben felt the remembered weight in his hand. He ached for it, for a time when he’d felt powerful and confident and capable of conquering any fear—even if it had been a lie.

_“I am the best parts of you. I’m the one people recognize.”_

“You’re the one they fear,” Ben said.

The mask tilted. The glow of the lightsaber highlighted the cracks of red.

_“I’m the one Rey wants.”_

Ben stiffened.

_“Maybe you can abandon me, but can you abandon her?”_

The darkness chilled. When Ben breathed out, it clouded the air.

But he raised a hand to reach for the light he couldn’t see, and as warmth tingled in his fingertips, he heard Rey’s voice:

_You’re Ben Solo, Jedi Knight._

_I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand._

“I won’t abandon her,” he said. “Just as she never abandoned me.”

The light flooded in, erasing Kylo Ren with a final scream of rage.

And with the light came a figure, ethereal but so very real.

“Ben.”

His throat pulled tight, but he choked a word out anyway: “Mom.”

She stood before him with a gentle smile, her face more wrinkled than he remembered, but just as caring. She raised a hand to his cheek, and he leaned into her touch, as he should have done with his father.

“We forgive you, Ben.”

His eyes burned.

“Bring that sweet girl home.”

It was all he needed to hear.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Finn went with him to speak to Poe. Ben was still forbidden to approach a starship, so he expected a real fight after saying he was about to board one, even with Finn coming along.

But when he said, “I’m going after Rey,” Poe only looked up with tired eyes.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “She’s coming here.”

Ben and Finn exchanged a glance.

“She radioed in not ten minutes ago.” Poe shook his head. “This is not a conversation I’m looking forward to. I don’t like it, but she’s been completely unreliable at best and hostile at worst; she’s openly attacked two Resistance outpost teams. So I can’t have her in this fight. Not anymore.”

“She isn’t herself,” Ben said.

“That’s kind of the whole point.”

“Let us talk to her,” Finn begged.

Poe waved a hand. “By all means. She doesn’t hear a word I say. If you can get through, of course I want her back. If not, well . . . she can refuel, she can stay the night, but she’s out tomorrow.”

_Rey._

Ben reached out, but all he felt was cold.

There was nothing to do but wait.

+++

Ben felt it before anyone said a word—the familiar signature.

And he felt the black tide behind it.

His heart pinched in his chest. With long strides, he exited the underground base. The gunship had already landed. Five red-robed figures stood at the bottom of its entry ramp.

Rey was hard to spot at first, not dressed in her usual off-white or gray, but instead sporting a cloak as black as space, and a void expression to match. In her hand was a new lightsaber with a folded black shaft. Even without seeing it ignited, Ben knew it would have two red blades.

It was a nightmare they’d both had.

Poe stood in front of her, hands on his hips. As Ben approached, he heard the general’s raised voice:

“So much for doing what’s right!”

Rey maintained her blank expression. “This is what’s right. I am restoring peace to the galaxy, and the Resistance must fall in line.”

Ben nudged his way through the gathering crowd, struggling to hear over the murmurs.

 _“We’re_ restoring peace,” Poe shot back. “Having literal peace talks. What are you doing? Chasing thugs in the Outer Rim. Changing your wardrobe. If you actually cared, you’d be here, you’d be _helping,_ not giving us another problem to handle!”

In response, Rey lifted a hand. At the edge of its landing pad, Poe’s gray-and-orange X-Wing trembled. As Rey slowly clenched her fist, the metal crunched and shrieked, the wings curling in on themselves, balling as surely as her fingers.

“What the kriff?!” Poe jumped back. “Rey!”

Rey turned her gaze to the crowd of Resistance members. They shrank back.

“The New Republic is fallen,” she shouted. “The First and Last Order are fallen. The only thing that can save the galaxy is an empire. _My_ empire. And you all have a place in it. Join me.”

No one moved. A few fighters shifted uneasily, shooting glances at General Dameron.

Then Finn stepped into the circle.

“Stop this, Rey,” he said. “It isn’t like you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve told you before—I’m tired of people saying they know me.”

As Ben broke through the audience, her eyes found his.

She raised a hand.

“Come with me.”

The dark pulled at him, promised him a world without loss, a world without consequence. Promised him power. Control. And her.

But he knew better.

He’d lived in the dark before, and he knew its jagged edges. He knew its lies.

He opened his mouth to speak when a Resistance fighter at his elbow recoiled away.

“Traitor,” she spat. “You never changed at all. The Jedi’s in league with this invader!”

Her outrage stirred the fighters around them. Hands dropped to blasters. Ben was unarmed and very uneager to repeat this sort of confrontation.

Rey ignited her lightsaber. The twin blades burned harsh and bright.

“You will not touch him,” she snarled.

“Everyone drop your weapons,” Poe ordered.

Someone fired off a blaster—at Rey. She directed it back into the man’s chest, and he dropped with a groan.

“Stand down!” Poe shouted. “Hold your fire!”

A second lightsaber ignited. The blue light painted the edge of Finn’s determined jaw.

Rey laughed. “That’s not a toy. You’ll just get hurt.”

“Only if you hurt me,” he said. “And my friend wouldn’t.”

“If you want my friendship, join me.”

“True friendship doesn’t have a price.”

Her shoulders lifted a fraction. “Then I guess I don’t need it.”

Ben felt the shift of the Force. “Finn!” he shouted.

But Finn had felt it, too. He rolled forward just in time, and the box of supplies flew behind him, crashing into the ground and knocking back two Resistance fighters. Finn caught his feet again and brought his lightsaber crashing up into Rey’s double blades.

Just as Ben stepped forward, a fighter tackled him from behind.

“I am on your side!” he growled, trying to disengage from the woman.

Curse his mother for gathering all the spitfires in the galaxy.

The lightsabers sang in the air as they collided and ripped apart. Rey was destructive with her swings, tearing into the ships and equipment around her whenever Finn’s blade wasn’t there to stop her. She brought the Force to bear like a cyclone, sending boxes and supplies flying. Poe shouted for everyone to get back, but the Red Guard rushed in, engaging the front lines. Blaster fire burst through the camp.

The woman atop Ben held desperately to his arms, and it was hardly a fair contest, considering she possessed four to his two.

“Stun him!” she shouted.

Another fighter raised a blaster. Ben twisted at the last second, putting the woman in the line of fire. A dirty trick, but thank the Force she’d called for stun.

She dropped, unconscious, and Ben rolled to his feet. The fighter before him tried once more for a stunning shot, but then cried out in pain as debris collided with his shoulder. A vibro-shiv ripped through the air toward his face.

Ben raised both hands, halting boxes and supplies in midair, though he grunted with the effort. He felt Rey’s anger in the energy, black as her new cloak, strong as her spirit. Slowly, he forced everything to the ground as fighters and staff members retreated out of harm’s way.

Finn was holding his own, matching Rey blow for blow. He’d even pushed her back to the forest’s edge.

Then, with a snarl, she flicked her wrist. Her double-bladed weapon snapped into its full form, blades extended at either end.

And just like her weapon, she seemed to have a new edge as she attacked. Finn had never been able to practice against another lightsaber, much less two. He gave ground quickly. But the Force remained steady around him.

Ben wanted to be proud of his student, but all he felt was fear. Fear that someone wasn’t going to survive this battle—and he couldn’t bear to see either of them hurt.

Poe appeared at his shoulder. “If I fire on her, she’ll reflect it. How do I safely capture a Jedi?”

Ben couldn’t knock her out as he’d once done; she was trained in the Force now. Her mind might even be stronger than his.

He tried to breathe, but his chest was a vise.

 _“Ben,”_ someone whispered.

Luke.

Ben swallowed. He closed his eyes.

_“You know the dark.”_

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

_“You know the path.”_

“Solo!” Poe shouted. “I don’t want to shoot. Do I have a choice?”

Ben opened his eyes.

He breathed.

As Poe raised a blaster, he reached out and pushed the barrel down.

“Trust me,” he said.

Poe grimaced. “I trusted _her.”_

But he kept the weapon down.

Ben held out a hand, calling to Rey’s staff where he’d left it in the weapons rack. It collided with his palm. The weight was a comfort. He walked forward with purpose, and he brought the Force with him, coiled in every bone.

Finn left a gap in one of his defensive stances. Rey threw a hand out, and a blast of lightning knocked him to the ground, his lightsaber spinning away into the brush. He moaned. She raised her blade to strike.

And Ben swung her own staff into her spine.

She let out a sharp grunt of pain, stumbling forward. She turned to face the new opponent, eyes snapping fire. Ben felt the betrayal through their bond.

“I’m with you,” he said. “And we’re leaving.”

He grabbed her free hand in his, pulled her toward her starship.

She still looked like she wanted to stab him, but she collapsed her blade.

 _“Traitors!”_ someone bellowed.

A blaster bolt shot red and hot toward Ben’s face. He halted it in its path, and it hung, quivering, stretched in thin air. After they passed, it blasted harmlessly into the forest.

Without looking back, Ben boarded Rey’s ship, her with him. She shouted for the Red Guard, and the four survivors fell back. The entry ramp raised, and the ship took flight.

The fact that no starfighters gave chase spoke to Poe’s trust. At least, Ben hoped it did.

Now he had to hope he’d made the right decision.

And that he survived it.

+++

After they left the planet’s atmosphere, the autopilot engaged.

And there was nowhere to run.

“First things first,” Rey said.

She unlatched Ben’s tracker cuff. Ben shivered at the combination of her fingers against his skin and the sudden loss of something he’d worn for months.

Then she clenched her fist, and the cuff crumpled as surely as the X-Wing had.

“Let him track that.” She smirked, a harsh expression on her soft face.

“We should speak alone,” Ben said, all-too-aware of the Red Guard at his back. He wouldn’t get two words into _Come back to the light_ before one of them impaled him on a Force pike.

Rey shrugged. She waved a hand, and the guards retreated to the rear of the ship, leaving the two of them alone in the lounge. The gunship was spacious, but something about the curved seating areas and tables reminded Ben of the Falcon. Unexpectedly, that was comforting.

“Where to first?” Rey relaxed into one of the couches, her eyes sparkling with a dark excitement. “There’s an entire galaxy to cleanse.”

“Cleanse,” Ben murmured. He moved to sit, then realized he was still holding her staff. He leaned it gently against a wall.

“You need a lightsaber.” Rey eyed the staff in disgust. “That’s barely a weapon.”

Ben cast it a glance. He thought of his mother, wondered what she would say.

“It was a friend’s,” he said. “And that’s what we do when someone we love loses the way. We keep what they lost, and we leave on the light.”

If his words reached her, she gave no indication.

His mother had been a diplomat, a general. She could convince people to want things they’d never even heard of.

What was Ben? A laundry boy?

_You know the path._

The path to the dark side was an oily slope of hatred, a repeated pattern of doing things to regret and then diving darker to silence it. But it began with one thing.

“Fear is the path to the dark side,” Ben said quietly.

What was she afraid of?

+++

Rey had felt such triumph when Kylo Ren had boarded her ship. Now she looked up at him with narrowed, dark eyes. “I hope you didn’t join me just to spout nonsense.”

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“Certainly not you.”

He glanced behind him, studied the wall with interest. When he brought his eyes back to hers, his lips twitched.

“Can you see my surroundings? I can’t see yours.” His eyebrows lifted the smallest degree, emphasizing the youth in his normally stern expression. “Just you.”

For a moment, Rey frowned, until she remembered their first Force connection, when she’d been so startled, she’d almost shot him. He’d said those exact same words.

Something inside her stirred. A forgotten feeling tried to surface.

She rolled her eyes.

“I told you I needed your help, but if you’re just here to play games . . .” She looked away. “I’ve killed you once before.”

“And you saved me. Was it for nothing?”

“I’m beginning to think so.”

“Because I’m not Kylo Ren.”

Her jaw tightened.

“But you didn’t save Kylo Ren. You saved me. Ben.” He swallowed. “You saved me, Rey.”

Why had she needed him so badly to begin with? It all felt hazy now.

She shoved herself to her feet. Half of her meant to eject him into space, and the other half just wanted escape. But before she could go anywhere, Kylo reached out and caught her hand.

And the Force crashed in like a wave.

+++

Ben had meant to see into her mind, but the power of it nearly knocked him off his feet. He felt her fury, and beneath it, her fear. He dove into it headfirst.

Suddenly, they were back on Exegol. Rey’s past self stood before the Emperor, alone. And she raised her saber.

Was she afraid of the Emperor?

“I’m sorry I didn’t sense anything,” Ben said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.”

Rey twisted in his grip, but he held tight.

Past Rey sank her blade into flesh, and the Emperor shrieked until he fell still. The air sang with regret.

Was she afraid of what she’d done?

“I did this _for_ you,” Rey shouted. “The Emperor would have killed you, but I saved your life. Twice!” Her face warped in a dark scowl. “Now I wish I hadn’t.”

She clawed to be free, but Ben caught both her hands, held fast. It was here somewhere, the root of everything.

Then she dug her nails into his skin, clutched him as tightly as he’d been holding her.

“You don’t want to be Kylo Ren?” she said, voice mocking. “I won’t give you a choice.”

And the wave turned on him.

+++

Rey summoned every memory of Kylo she possessed: Their battle on the moon of Endor, his blade raised above her, ready to strike. Snoke’s throne room and the satisfaction on his face as he cut down his former master.

“You were _powerful,”_ she hissed. “No one could stand against you, nothing could stop you. Now all it takes to knock you down is a skinny lady in the Resistance.”

She wanted the taunt to cut, wanted to see him crack under the pressure.

But he gave her half a smirk and said, “Humbolts are a fierce species. I bet she would have taken you down, too.”

Rey snarled. She pushed with all she could muster, a wave of dark memories.

Starkiller Base. Han Solo.

His smirk vanished, and she assumed one of her own.

Until he said, “Why do you need me to be Kylo Ren?”

The Force strengthened his words, and without Rey’s permission, they were back on Exegol.

+++

Ben saw the moment of their minds meeting, just before she’d given him the lightsaber. He saw his own eyes, felt her fear ring louder than ever. He almost released her.

Was she afraid of him?

But then—

He saw her vision. The Emperor’s lightning. Ben’s skin crawled at the sound of his own screams.

She’d seen his coming death. Or his return to the dark.

She had done it for him. All of it for him.

She _was_ afraid of him, just not in the way everyone else was.

Rey threw out her other hand, and her lightsaber leapt to her palm. Red light sliced through the shadows of Exegol.

Ben released her. The connection ended.

She stood before him on the gunship, chest heaving in angry breaths, saber held to his throat. Ben could smell the heat.

At the temple, Luke had spoken of the fallen Jedi Order, how they’d closed themselves off from all connection.

 _If you have nothing,_ he’d said, _you have no fear to lose it._

He’d spoken of the creation of Vader, how it all might have been avoided.

 _Who knows?_ he’d said. _Maybe they were right._

At the time, Ben hadn’t been able to gather his thoughts enough to form a response, but the conversation continued to eat at him in quiet moments until he understood why it felt so wrong. It wasn’t just because he and his uncle wouldn’t exist if Anakin Skywalker had followed the rules, but also because Ben thought if there was nothing special enough to fear losing, then life was already pointless.

The fear that Rey felt, he felt it, too. But he felt the truth stronger.

And while she stared at him with blazing eyes, weapon held to his throat, he said it.

+++

Rey’s hand trembled. The lightsaber blades wavered beside Ben’s neck. Her head throbbed like it was on the verge of splitting open.

Something inside her was screaming, but she couldn’t hear the words.

When Ben spoke, his voice was steady. “You will never lose me, Rey. Not if the Emperor struck me down then and not if you strike me down now.”

Her eyes burned. Her knuckles whitened on the saber.

“Liar,” she hissed. “People leave. It’s what they do.”

A tide of fear and grief welled inside her. She thought of everyone she’d loved in the past. All of them gone now.

Except him.

And as long as he was weak, she would lose him, too. She’d already seen it.

“My parents,” she whispered. “Luke, Leia. You. It’s how everything ends. Why should I keep fighting it?”

“Because if it does end,” he said, “then what we have before the end is worth it. And if it doesn’t, it’s worth it even more.”

She shook her head. Nothing was worth that pain.

“Being Kylo Ren won’t save me from death. You know that better than anyone.”

She remembered sinking his own lightsaber into his stomach. Remembered her immediate horror and remorse.

So there was no hope.

Rey looked up at him. A hot tear dripped down her cheek.

Ben stared back with beautiful, brown eyes.

“In a galaxy of possibilities,” he whispered, “I want to be with you. Even if it kills me.”

+++

Ben watched her struggle, felt the Force like a churning river. For a moment, he thought she would strike after all. But he stood still just the same. Because what he’d said was true.

Then Rey deactivated the lightsaber. It fell from her slack hands.

Ben caught her arms as she collapsed. He clutched her to his chest.

“I am afraid,” she whispered, staring up at him with lost eyes, her cheeks wet with tears.

“Me too,” he whispered back.

But braving the fear was worth it for what she made him feel.

“I can’t—” Her tears ran faster now. “I can’t protect you. There’s—there’s nothing I—”

“You can trust me,” he said firmly. “That’s what you can do. Stop hiding. Stop shouldering everything yourself. If we’re going to manage anything, it’ll only be together.”

And then she said four words that stopped his heart: “I love you, Ben.”

Ben tilted his head. He gripped her waist with one hand, pressed the other to her back. She kissed him before he could even finish the journey. And as tightly as he already held her, she clung to him more tightly still, as if she couldn’t bear to have even air between them.

The Force crashed over him, a swirl of her emotions and his. Fear and trust, all in one. Perhaps they would always be a tangled mess of dark and light. But even if it was a tightrope, if it was the worst balancing act, they would make it through.

Together.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Rey had never felt such shame. In quiet moments, she still heard the whisper of the Emperor, calling her to duties she never wanted, promising her powers that didn’t exist. Perhaps she would always hear it. She’d stepped onto this path herself; she would have to brave the shadows along with the sunlight.

But she couldn’t brave them all at once.

She and Ben didn’t return to the Resistance immediately. Ben sent a message to say things were under control but not much else. Rey couldn’t bring herself to even speak to her former friends. Not yet. Ben seemed hopeful they would forgive her, but she was still reeling from the fact that he had.

“I was in the dark much longer,” he said. “You saved me first.”

It eased the pain a little. The words they’d spoken to either other on two separate occasions had never rang more true: _You’re not alone._

Rey banished the Red Guard and her new weapon along with them. She’d expected them to put up a fight, but they only did so verbally, and in the end, they obeyed her command. She knew it was the same as before—that they’d only melted into the shadows to return at a later day. They still saw her as Empress. As Sith.

“Let them,” Ben said. “Other people will always have their opinions, but only you can define who you are.”

She wasn’t Rey Palpatine, Sith Empress.

But she also wasn’t quite Rey of the Resistance, Jedi Knight.

She felt like she was surrounded by scavenged parts. They’d all belonged to something once. Now she had to build a future, and there was no telling what it would look like.

But she wasn’t alone.

After they dropped the Red Guard on the nearest planet, Rey entered coordinates for Tatooine. When Ben asked why, she bit her lip.

“I lost your mother’s lightsaber,” she admitted, unable to even meet his eyes.

“She cares a lot more about you than the saber,” he said.

He sounded so confident, but all the same, he agreed to help her track it down.

The Mos Eisley spaceport was more crowded than it had been on her previous visit, but all the same, a hush fell over the crowd at her appearance. She stiffened as she heard a whisper of _Colubridans._

Then Ben stepped to her side, and a different kind of hush fell. This time, the whisper was, _First Order._

“What a pair we make,” Rey whispered. Her face was blazing, but the tension in her shoulders relaxed just having him near.

“Move along,” Ben told the crowd, steel in his tone.

Obediently, gazes averted and the flow of traffic resumed.

“We might get attacked before this is all over,” Ben said quietly. He kept a level tone, but Rey saw his hand twitch, moving for a lightsaber that didn’t exist.

She slipped her fingers through his. Only half-joking, she said, “I’ll protect you.”

He gave a wry smile that lifted her insides.

Together, they made their way through the spaceport to the Mos Eisley Inn, where Rey had previously stayed with her guard. She spoke to the owner, but the Mon Calamari did little more than shake his domed head and wave his webbed fingers. It had been a stretch to hope the innkeeper would have kept the lightsaber for its owner’s return, but Rey felt her temper rise all the same. Her hand tightened on her staff.

“Did you sell it?” she demanded. “You just wait for your guests to clear out, and anything they may have dropped, that’s just extra payment for you?”

He grunted some excuse, clearly dismissive, about to turn away.

“We’re not finished!” Rey snapped.

And in the instant before she swung her staff—

Ben’s thumb brushed across her knuckles.

“Breathe,” he whispered.

Rey almost dropped her weapon. Horror washed out the anger, and she was the one who wheeled away, heat rushing through her face.

While her back was turned, she heard Ben speak to the innkeeper about a list of guests.

“I’ll be outside,” Rey said, already moving.

The fresh air was anything but, full of the stink of engine exhaust and the sweat of a hundred species mingling in the desert heat. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath, tried to center herself.

Eventually, Ben joined her. He didn’t speak until she turned to meet his eyes.

“I have a list of everyone who stayed in the room after you,” he said. “If they aren’t off-planet already, we can interrogate them. We can also check out all the scrap yards in town, see if it landed there.”

“Ben, I almost attacked him.” Her voice cracked.

“But you didn’t,” he said. “The victories will be small for a while, but they’re still victories.”

He reached up to tuck a wispy strand of hair behind her ear, and even in the blistering heat, she shivered at his touch.

There was so much she wished she could do over.

Ben glanced up at the sky. “The suns are starting to set. I doubt we can track down any of these names before dark, but we can at least talk to a junk dealer.”

Wordlessly, Rey nodded.

She let him do the talking this time, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds under his glare before the junk dealer was swearing up and down he’d never seen a metal cylinder like that—but they were welcome to _any_ of his wares at a special discount.

“Discount for friends,” he said, “of course, of course!”

Ben declined.

The night air already had an edge to it by the time they returned to the inn. Rey would have preferred sleeping somewhere else, but the Mos Eisley Inn had the cheapest price (which was still exorbitant for the actual accommodations, all sparse and in disrepair). The room she and Ben rented had a single, creaky sleeper and a three-legged stool that had once been four-legged.

“I’ll take the floor,” Ben said.

Rey had just assumed they would share the mattress, but she hesitated to suggest it after his statement. She couldn’t blame him for wanting some distance from her. If such a thing were possible, she could have used some distance from herself.

While Ben retrieved extra bedding, Rey unwound her outer wrap and unhooked her belts. She had sleep clothes on her gunship, but she hadn’t had the foresight to bring them, and it was too late now. She would just have to sleep in her undershirt and trousers. She climbed onto the sleeper, and though it was still far too hot, she pulled the thin blanket up to her chin. The outside lights from the still-bustling spaceport filtered in thin stripes through the shutters.

Ben returned with a single blanket and pillow. He spread the blanket across the floor like a tarp and stretched out on his back. Even watching, Rey could tell it was uncomfortable. The sleeper was hardly a cloud, but it was better than an uneven floor.

She opened her mouth.

She meant to say any number of things: _Ben, your boots are still on. Ben, there’s room up here._

She said, “Better luck tomorrow.”

Force, she was a disaster.

Ben nodded. A stripe of light bobbed across his lips as he did. Rey stared for far too long.

Then she swallowed hard and closed her eyes for sleep.

+++

Ben had waited so long to be at Rey’s side, seeing the universe with her.

And now that he was here, he was a disaster.

He’d consigned himself to the floor without thinking and then wallowed in wordless regret, silently hoping Rey would say something. But all she said was about better luck the next day. Then she settled into the mattress and closed her eyes like she’d never been less bothered.

So it was only Ben-the-mess chasing his thoughts in circles, replaying the days back to Exegol and beyond.

After a while, he wriggled his boots off one after the other. Then his tunic. Rey was asleep anyway, and even though something might scurry over him in the dark (there was enough filth in the inn to hide a womp rat or two), it was far too hot to sleep fully clothed. At least there was none of Ajan Kloss’s humidity. The air had gone from drowning to drying, but of the two, Ben preferred the dry. Humidity was only worth something if it came with an ocean.

Maybe after they found the lightsaber, they could go to Chandrila. He could show Rey the sea.

Ben dragged in a deep breath, banished the thoughts of the future and tried to focus on the now. He tried to sleep. When that didn’t work, he tried to meditate. And he must have achieved at least half a relaxed state—

—because Rey’s whimper startled him out of it.

Ben sat up. The nightlife of the spaceport still thrived outside, filtering into the room in low light and white noise. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the air had cooled enough to approach a chill.

Rey was curled on her side, her back to him, tangled in the blanket. She let out another whimper.

“Rey,” Ben whispered.

She gave no response. Still asleep.

The last time Ben had seen her wake from a nightmare, he’d been on the other side of the galaxy, unable to offer any comfort outside words. Now she was within reach.

He set his jaw. Silently, he climbed to his feet and then onto the sleeper beside her. There was plenty of room; she’d practically buried herself into the wall, curled as tightly as possible. Ben eased one arm beneath her, turned her gently until she was cradled into his shoulder.

Half of him expected an attack in response. What he got was the opposite.

Rey hooked one leg around his, clung to his waist. She tucked herself as tightly into him as she’d previously been tucked to the wall. And he must have been at least somewhat better than an inanimate structure, because within moments, her breathing deepened.

Ben’s lips twitched. He rested his cheek against her hair. Something inside him floated.

And within moments, he was asleep as well.

+++

Although Rey had uneasy dreams, she slept soundly past dawn. When she finally opened her eyes, she squinted against the full light of morning.

And then the realization hit her—

—of Ben Solo in her bed.

He was already looking at her, his brown eyes soft in the light. She became acutely aware of her abdomen pressed to his hip, her leg tucked between his. His hand on the curve of her waist.

All at once, her face flamed.

And she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

After a moment, he filled the silence for her. “Better luck today.”

His voice jittered, like he felt the same nervousness she did. Or maybe more.

Rey bit her lip to keep from laughing. It would have been a giddy, ridiculous sound.

“You had a nightmare.” He swallowed. “I can . . .”

He started to shift, and she pressed her palm to his bare chest.

“Don’t go,” she said softly.

That was all it took. He captured her lips, and she traced her fingers gently over his chest, across his collarbone, up to his ear. She lost herself in him and marveled how he always tasted like _light._ Even more so when he teased her tongue with his.

Rey would have happily stayed in his arms all day, but eventually, they needed air. And the ever-insistent bustle outside the window made Mos Eisley impossible to ignore.

“We’d better start our search,” Ben said, his tone more like elegy than enthusiasm.

Rey wanted to say, _Scrap the search._ But the whole thing was her doing, and she needed to fix it.

So she said, “Ben, don’t ever take the floor again.”

He swallowed hard. Just as she started to sit up, he brushed his thumb over her cheek.

“I love you,” he murmured, so softly she almost wondered if she’d heard it.

And then she wished she could hear it forever.

It was another hour before they actually started the search.

+++

The scrap dealers of Tatooine were surly at best, and the former guests of Mos Eisley Inn were even worse. A week passed with only a single vague lead to show for it.

Yet Ben had never been happier.

Not that every problem was solved. Rey wasn’t the only one still struggling with the dark, particularly when a group of thugs cornered them outside a scrap yard to take a shot at the former supreme leader. But no one emerged from the encounter in a coffin, and that was a victory.

Ben holstered one of the thugs’ high-powered blasters, hopeful that carrying a visible weapon would discourage similar encounters in the future.

Rey watched the thugs scamper off.

“The galaxy does need order,” she said softly. Her brow furrowed.

“The dark doesn’t lie about everything,” Ben said. “Just everything that matters.”

Rey took a deep breath. “I can’t fix everything myself.”

“No one person can.”

She nodded, and they retook their search. In honesty, Ben didn’t care where he went or what he did as long as he was at her side, but retrieving the lightsaber mattered to her, so he dedicated himself to it with full force.

Rey carried her staff once again, slung over her shoulder as they worked on Tatooine. And she made it clear that once they found Leia’s weapon, she wouldn’t be retaking it.

“I don’t deserve a lightsaber,” she said shortly.

Ben didn’t argue; not because he agreed, but because he knew how rocky the return path was.

_Patience._

It took a good deal of bribery and sweet talking, but eventually, they found his mother’s weapon with a scrap dealer who didn’t know what he had. Ben traded his blaster for it, and the scrap dealer cackled happily at the bargain, already polishing his new pistol as they left the yard.

“Luke’s farm is here.” Rey squinted against the desert suns. “We could bury it. Make sure it never falls into the wrong hands. . . . Again.”

But Ben stared down at the lightsaber. His mother had been a diminutive woman, a full foot shorter than him, slim and graceful.

So it didn’t make sense.

That her weapon fit so perfectly in his hand.

Rey smiled. “Maybe it was meant for you all along.”

“Could use a cross guard,” he murmured, but he hooked the weapon in his belt.

It may have been a trick of the desert heat, but he could swear he caught a glimpse of his mother’s smile.

And for the first time, he truly felt like a Jedi.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

After they found the lightsaber, Rey told herself to radio her friends.

But she couldn’t.

Instead, she rented a speeder bike, and she pointed it toward the desert.

“I’ll be back,” she told Ben, and somehow, he heard the unspoken. He didn’t ask where she was going.

Luke’s moisture farm was just as Rey had seen in her vision. Under disuse, the sand had swept in, and the farm had the look of ancient ruins only half-discovered. Rey lifted a hand, but the Force remained silent. Her fingers trembled.

“Still reaching out with your fingers instead of your feelings.”

Rey’s heart leapt into her throat. She whirled, and her foot slid in the loose sand, bringing her crashing down.

Luke chuckled.

Even though she’d come to see him, Rey found herself at a loss for words. The thought of any of her recent actions only stirred a fresh storm of shame within her.

Luke’s outline flickered in her vision. Part of her wanted him to vanish into the desert. The other part of her couldn’t bear it.

“I . . .” Her throat closed. What had she even come for?

“Let go of the fear,” Luke said gently.

“I’ve let you down,” she whispered.

Luke pursed his lips. He turned his eyes to the abandoned farm, to the crusted vaporators and sand-blasted dwelling.

“This was my uncle’s farm,” he said. “And his father’s before him. Just as I chased my father’s legacy, he chased his. Devoted his life to it. To him, it was more than just a meager living.”

Rey followed his gaze. She remembered another desert, home to a lost child who waited with stubborn devotion for the fulfilment of an impossible hope.

“I had my own dreams,” Luke went on. “And on the day he needed me most, I wasn’t here.”

Rey swallowed. The hot air scorched her throat.

Luke lowered himself to the sand beside her.

“When you faced the Emperor . . .” She shook her head. “You did everything right, and I—”

Luke made a sound like he was choking. “Everything right? Rey.” He sighed. “Didn’t I warn you about the danger of legends? What I did right was believe in my father, and what you did right was believe in Ben.”

“But I didn’t believe in him. I killed the Emperor out of fear, and I ran away.”

Not to mention the worst of all of it.

After every sacrifice Ben had made to return to the light—

—she’d tried to tempt him back to the dark.

Rey hugged her knees to her chest, buried her face.

“He deserves better,” she whispered.

In the silence, Luke didn’t contradict her. Her stomach tightened.

“I’ll go back to Jakku.” But even as she said the words, she knew she couldn’t. It would be easier to peel her own skin off than to leave Ben Solo.

Force, she was selfish.

She lifted her head and found Luke staring lazily into the distance, lost in a daydream.

 _“Hey!”_ she snapped.

“Were you talking?” He gave her a half-lidded glance. “I’m deaf to nonsense.”

Color shot through her face, scorching her ears.

Luke’s expression softened. “We all take paths we regret. But the worst mistake of all is hiding from the people who love us. That’s when we’re truly lost in the dark.”

Long after he disappeared, Rey heard those words echo in her mind. She watched the desert suns creep through the sky, watched the shadows lengthen, and she thought about light and dark. And Ben.

Finally, she climbed to her feet. Brushed the sand from her clothes. Returned to her speeder bike.

Just as she reached for the vehicle, a voice from behind stopped her.

“No one’s operated this farm for so long.”

Rey turned to find a woman squinting down at her from atop a long-legged pack animal.

“Raiders have already cleaned it out, I think,” the woman went on, her squint sharpening with the clear suspicion that Rey was just such a raider.

“I’m only passing through,” Rey said.

“Who are you?”

“Rey.”

If the woman squinted any further, she’d be unable to see at all. “Rey who?”

Rey ran her tongue over her cracked lips. She looked out at the desolate Skywalker farm.

A faint whisper came from within: _Empress . . ._

There was so much meaning in a name. And so little.

“Just Rey.” With a crooked smile, she swung a leg over her speeder. “That’s plenty.”

She flipped the ignition, and the engine gargled to life. Rey pointed the vehicle toward Mos Eisley.

Ben was waiting.

+++

After two weeks on Tatooine, Rey knew. It was less a sense that she was ready than it was the knowledge that if she hid any longer, she would never stop.

_The worst mistake is hiding from the people who love us._

So she squared her shoulders and said, “I have to face them.”

Ben squeezed her hand. And after she radioed a message to the Ajan Kloss camp, her voice trembling through it, he kissed her forehead.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it now,” he said, “but it will work out. All of it.”

When they arrived at the base and Ben saw the Falcon parked on a landing pad, his confidence was put to the test. It was Rey’s turn to squeeze his hand. And while Ben faced Chewie, she left to face Poe.

It wasn’t pretty.

Poe had a lot to yell.

She’d endangered the entire camp. She’d attacked her own friends. People had died. And after she’d left, there had been a mass exodus of fighters, people who’d believed in the Resistance because they’d believed in a Jedi. And, worse, people who’d thought she was right and the galaxy would only survive under an iron hand.

Rey kept her eyes down, her heart falling further with every word.

Eventually, he ran out of breath. And the silence was worse.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably, a completely inadequate phrase for what she felt.

“Of course you are,” Poe huffed. “Someone like you can’t do all that and not be sorry.”

It was almost comforting.

Until he added—

“I just don’t understand how you did it at all.”

“Poe . . .” Her voice cracked.

“Force stuff,” he said. “Jedi, Sith, engines. I get it.”

She wasn’t sure where engines came into the mix.

“But I’ll never understand it.”

She waited. After a moment, he looked away, braced his hands on his hips.

“As head general,” he said, “you’re out of the Resistance. Permanently. You can stay one night and refuel, but you’re gone in the morning, and you’re never seen near any Resistance base again. Got it?”

Her throat tightened, but she nodded.

She expected him to leave. He didn’t. He stepped forward and gripped her shoulders.

“As your friend,” he said, “what the hell, Rey? Never make me worry like this again. _Please._ Never again.”

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. She threw her arms around him, and he gripped her back tightly, both of them grieving what was lost.

+++

Somehow, despite the roar that made his knees tremble, Ben came out of his encounter with his arms intact. It would be a long while yet before he had Chewie’s forgiveness, but he took the start with gratitude.

Rey met him in his old room. Her eyes were red.

“Poe says we can stay one night and refuel, but we have to be out by morning.”

“It’ll take time to mend all the bridges,” Ben said, for both their sakes.

“If they ever mend at all.” She stepped to his side. “What’s that?”

Ben rotated the glowing orb in his hand. “A reminder that there’s always light in the dark.”

He handed the moon lamp to her, and she rubbed her thumb gently over the bumpy surface.

“Technically . . . Poe said you can stay.” She kept her eyes on the light. “If you want. I’m the one—”

Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What I want is to be with you.”

She leaned into him and relaxed.

Until someone knocked on the door.

Before Ben even had the chance to open it, Finn burst in. And before Rey could finish stammering her apology, the ex-stormtrooper swept her up in a hug. Ben watched with amusement until Finn snaked an arm out and dragged him into the mess, too.

Eventually, Ben managed to wriggle free, breaking the moment.

“I’ll talk to Poe,” Finn said, jaw set. “I can convince him—”

Rey shook her head. “I don’t want you to. Poe gave me more than enough chances, and I made my choices anyway. It’s only right to take the consequences.”

Finn looked at Ben as if he’d find support, but Ben said, “Besides, the Resistance is in good hands.”

“Yeah, I hear there’s an Organa in charge again.” Rey’s eyes took on their old spark, and she poked Finn in the ribs.

Though his ears turned red, he grinned. “A Jedi, too.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Not quite. Half a Jedi maybe.”

“Well if you won’t stick around to finish my training, I’ve got no choice but to knight myself right here.”

“A third of a Jedi, shrinking by the second.”

Rey laughed, and the sound was music to Ben’s ears.

In the end, Finn agreed to complete his training in the future. Ben wished he had a more definite plan for what lay ahead, but sometimes the path was uncertain, and that was the way of it. As long as it was pointed in the right direction, that was what mattered most.

The next morning, they left. They found temporary homes on planets they’d never visited, hoping that, eventually, one would stick. A few towns ran them out at just the sight of Ben (upsetting Rey more than him, possibly because he couldn’t stay upset while the woman he loved was huffy and ranting on his behalf).

And eventually, Rey made a lightsaber again. She refused to show him until it was complete.

When she ignited the blade, it cast a golden glow across her face.

“I thought we could both use the hope,” she said.

Ben smiled.

That night, as he and Rey lay curled in the dark, his arm around her, both of them watching the faint swirls across the dim moon lamp (the one constant feature no matter what temporary room they stayed in), she whispered:

“I understand why Luke ran. I wish we could, too. Find some forgotten, uninhabited planet and just stay there. No apologies, no temptations. Just us.”

Ben rested his cheek against her hair.

After a moment, he said, “There’s no peaceful retirement for the people who can shake galaxies. Luke learned that, too. Hiding from the mistakes is just making another.”

“I know.” She snuggled into him, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “I just wish it were easier.”

Ben knew that feeling. It would probably always be there—some piece of Kylo Ren still lurking, dragging him down in his weakest moments.

He found Rey’s hand in the dark, pressed it to his chest, their fingers woven together.

Softly, he said, “Pull me back from the edges. I’ll catch you when you fall. Just promise you’ll always take my hand.”

In answer, she squeezed his fingers. And she kissed him in a way that promised forever.

The moon paled in comparison to her glow.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was so enjoyable to write. I hope you liked it too! Thank you to all those who left kudos, and thank you to NelVin, ArroBizarre, V, MFA101, chocolatesouffle87, Garota_Nerd, Thekan, and MrsChanandler_Bong for leaving comments as I updated. Thank you so much for reading!


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